Senior Project
CSCI 4355 Spring 2024

Instructor Information

Name : Terry Sergeant   Office Hours
E-Mail : tsergeant@hsutx.edu MW 8:30–10:00; 2:30–3:30  
Office : JB 322 Tue 8:30–9:30  
Phone : 670-1292 Thu 8:30–11:30  
Web Site : https://josephus.hsutx.edu Fri 9:00–10:00  

Summary

Description : Students, working in a group setting, will draw upon knowledge and skills obtained in earlier CSCI courses to design, implement, and refine a significant project. Emphasis will be placed on critical thinking and on the synthesis of concepts and techniques in computer science. The course will include a comprehensive exam of CSCI concepts from throughout the degree program.
Prerequisites : CSCI 4322
Textbook : None

Grading

Your grade in the course will be earned / calculated as follows:

Semester Team Project   70%
Progress Reports   10%
Final Exam   20%
A $\rightarrow$ 90 100
B $\rightarrow$ 80 89
C $\rightarrow$ 70 79
D $\rightarrow$ 60 69
F $\rightarrow$ 0 59

Final Exam

The final exam will be in the form of a written exam given at the end of the semester. As required by the course description, the exam is intended to be comprehensive over the entire CSCI curriculum. Guidelines and expectations will be provided at the appropriate time in the semester.

Project Learning Objectives

The purpose of the project is to enhance learning in the following ways:

Semester Team Project Overview

Students in the course will be placed with a team and each team is assigned a project which is assessed as follows:
Requirement Pts Description
Implementation 300 pts By the end of this phase the project should be completely working.
Presentation 60 pts The entire team will participate in demonstrating the project results with each individual highlighting their contributions.
Peer Review 30 pts At the end of the semester each team member will engage in a confidential interview with the instructor to provide feedback on what it was like to work with each team member.
Total 390 pts  

Progress Reports

On Tuesday of each week in the implementation phase of the project (beginning with Jan 23) you will write a progress report. To do so, create a text document (named weekXY, where XY is the week number 01, 02, ...  12). The document will be submitted by uploading the text document into Canvas prior to class on the due date. This is for grading purposes.

The text document should have the following form:

	Your Name
	Progress Report Due Date
	Project Title

	Time spent in class/meetings this week: xx hours
	Time spent working on projec this week: xx hours
	Total time spent this week            : xx hours

	The milestone for this week was ...

	What I actually accomplished for this week was ...

	Updated Milestones
	Week #X: Goal for the next week
	Week #Y: Goal for the week after that
	Week #Z: Goal for the third week

Each progress report will be evaluated using the following template:

2 pts Attendance to meetings that week
3 pts Time invested: 8–12 hours per week is expected with 10 hours a week being average; so, if you devote 8 hours one week you should plan to spend 12 hours the next week
5 pts Submitted on time, containing the required elements, and demonstrating substantial thought
10 pts Total

There are 12 required progress reports.

Final Exam

The final exam is a comprehensive exam and asks questions from a variety of CSCI courses. The exam is a written exam and will be completed independently. Details regarding how to study and what topics to expect will be given as finals week approaches.

Notable Dates

Date Item
Tue 23 Apr Project is Due
Tue 30 Apr Group Presentation
Thu 02 May Peer Reviews
Thu 09 May Final Exam @ 1:00pm

Senior Project

Course Resources