See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/301476386

Overview of Capstone Project implementation in the Faculty of Electrical

Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia

Conference Paper · November 2015

DOI: 10.1109/ICEED.2015.7451500

CITATIONS READS

3 571

3 authors:

Idnin Pasya Syed Abdul Mutalib Al Junid

Universiti Teknologi MARA Universiti Teknologi MARA
72 PUBLICATIONS   213 CITATIONS    58 PUBLICATIONS   207 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Norlida Buniyamin
Universiti Teknologi MARA
106 PUBLICATIONS   845 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Ultrasound fat measurement sensor View project

RECONFIGURABLE ANTENNA View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Syed Abdul Mutalib Al Junid on 17 June 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 2015 IEEE 7th International Conference on Engineering Education (ICEED)
Overview of Capstone Project Implementation in the
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti
Teknologi MARA, Malaysia
Idnin Pasya, Syed Abdul Mutalib Al-Junid,
Faculty of Electrical Engineering,
Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450 Shah Alam,
Selangor, Malaysia.
idnin@salam.uitm.edu.my
Abstract—This paper presents an overview of Capstone
Project implementation at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering,
Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), and discusses the current
assessments methods and related issues. The Capstone project
marked course outcomes that are strongly correlated with the
engineering program requirements of the Engineering
Accreditation Council (EAC) in Malaysia. The paper put
forward several recommendations to improve assessment
methods for evaluating skills involving ethics, and project
implications to environmental issues. Self-assessment surveys to
evaluate the experience of the students are to be implemented
and analyzed in future works.
Keywords—Capstone project; Outcome based education;
Learning Outcomes; Engineering education
I. INTRODUCTION
The rapid evolution of technology and industry-driven
business operations throughout the world resulted in changes
in engineers’ job function [1]. In response to meeting the
current requirements of industry, engineering programs around
the world are undergoing rigorous changes of educational
framework. Regional professional agencies are taking a lot of
initiatives in giving guidelines to universities and academic
institutions to design their engineering programs to be able to
produce graduates capable in fulfilling the current industrial
needs. For example, in the United States, the accreditation of
engineering programs is mandated by the Accreditation Board
of Engineering and Technology (ABET). In Malaysia, the task
was taken by a professional body called the Engineering
Accreditation Council (EAC), which is made up of qualified
professional engineers from both the industry and academia.
Most accreditation bodies that follow similar guidelines
from ABET will include the elements of outcome based
education (OBE) in their guidelines for academic institutions.
While this paper will not discuss in depth regarding the
implementation of OBE, it is worth to state that the OBE
requires a rigorous process of determining the methods of
course delivery, and the tools of assessments of the course and
program learning outcomes. The EAC in Malaysia strongly
encourages all engineering programs to implement OBE in the
curriculum activities, including continuous quality
978-1-4799-8810-5/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
Norlida Buniyamin
Engineering and Technical Education Research Group,
Faculty of Electrical Engineering,
Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450 Shah Alam,
Selangor, Malaysia.
nbuniyamin@salam.uitm.edu.my
improvement (CQI) regularly. Within this scenario, according
to EAC accreditation manual [2], engineering students should
be exposed to solving complex engineering problems [3]
during the program. This is to ensure that the students meet
the program outcomes that involves dealing with engineering
design problems, based on the OBE framework.
Conventionally, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in
Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) has been implementing
the elements of solving engineering problems in the Final
Year Project (FYP) course offered to final year students.
Nevertheless, even though the FYP course was designed to
inculcate problems solving and evaluation skills, it also
include large portion of developing skills for library research,
literature reviews, and information processing, following the
guidelines from EAC manual [2]. Therefore, a separate course
to expose the students further to complex engineering
problems is required. The faculty has adopted ‘Capstone
Project’ course, which focuses on industrial based problems to
be solved by the students throughout a timeframe of two
semesters.
In a study that compares the implementation of Capstone
Project and the conventional FYP course, Abdul Halim et al.
reported that although both subject consist of similar course
contents, the Capstone Project is more suitable to provide the
students with real experience in solving real world problems,
since it requires them to produce their own new idea when
working on their projects [4]. This paper presents the
implementation of Capstone project in Universiti Teknologi
MARA (UiTM) in Malaysia, focusing on the curriculum
design to fit in the currently adopted OBE educational
framework. Initially, the contents of the Capstone project as a
core subject in the engineering program will be explained in
the next section. The curriculum design and assessment will
be explained in Section 3, followed by presentation of actual
results of the assessments of program outcomes and discussion
in Section 4. The conclusion and future plans will be presented
in Section 5.
95
 2015 IEEE 7th International Conference on Engineering Education (ICEED)

II. CAPSTONE PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION AT UITM TABLE I. THE MAPPING OF CAPSTONE COURSE OUTCOMES WITH EAC
MANUAL REQUIREMENTS
A. Background and Overview of Capstone Project Course Course outcomes
Table Head
The implementation of Capstone based project in the a. b. c. d. e.
faculty was intended to provide students with activities that i. Engineering knowledge
was covered in less proportion in the conventional FYP
course. Based on the study in [4], it was showed that although ii. Problem analysis
the conventional FYP course outcomes marked decent iii. Design/development of solution
correlation with the requirements in the EAC manual, several
iv. Investigation
items was not covered such as team-work, ethics,
environmental issues, and project management skills. v.Modern tool usage
The current capstone design course, ELE506 Electronic vi. The engineer and society
System Design, was developed to emulate electrical and
electronics engineering experiences students will face when vii. Environment and Sustainability
they enter engineering-based industries upon graduation. This viii. Ethics
Capstone course requires student to participate in a
ix. Communication
collaborative design project with end user or customer that
require them to translate and formulate a design problem x. Individual and team work
based on real industrial issues, explore the solutions, and
xi. Life long learning
communicate these results in oral presentation and written
reports. It aims to provide a student with comprehensive xii. Project management and finance
design experience in a team-oriented format and to expose the Strong correlation Good correlation
students in various economic, ethical, and social effects,
related to their design projects. Listed below are the course project, mandatory discussions with stakeholders,
requirements that students must fulfil. development of an acceptable solution, and a cost analysis.
After the site visit, students get a better understanding of site
a. Translate real problem to engineering problem. conditions, and develop a clear focus and scope of the project.
b. Come out with several engineering solutions and Prior to embarking on the design project, the student will
identify the best realistic options and comply the undergone lectures that covers engineering design principles
specifications and processes, where they will learn in detail regarding
c. Utilize project management skills, human and managing engineering project from the beginning until the
technical resources in implementing the projects end. Topics such as the initial problem definition,
brainstorming of solutions, market and literature surveys,
d. Design a system or process to meet the given financial implications, design strategy, prototyping, reverse
specifications with realistic engineering constraints engineering, ethics in design, environmental issues,
e. Write technical documents and give oral presentations evaluation, tests, and documentation are covered. The students
related to design project results will have to demonstrate the working prototype in a final
Table I shows the mapping of Capstone course outcomes presentation and submit the documentation for evaluation
to requirements of EAC manual 2012 for engineering
programs. It can be observed that the course outcomes cover C. Assessment
most of the EAC-required items. While conventional FYP The students will be assessed based on three major areas
course is less involved in individual and team work, project which are:
management and finance, environment and sustainability, the • Working progress (20%).
Capstone project includes them in the syllabus as a whole. • Ethics (10%)
• Project outcome (70%)
B. Project Execution The working progress will be evaluated based on the students
log book, where their progress from week to week will be
The project will be carried out by a group of 4 students.
evaluated based on the memos written from each team
The group must elect a leader and a secretary. The group must
members. Each supervising personnel will comment regarding
have a folio whose contents include the curriculum vitae of the
the log book entries occasionally, and this is taken into
group members, memo of discussions, design process,
account in the evaluation. The ethics are evaluated based on
documents necessary for the design, design log books, Gantt
attendance and technical report (in terms of plagiarism). The
chart, financial management documents and other necessary
final project outcome marks will be given based on project
reports. The course coordinator and supervising lecturers will
demonstration/presentation and technical reports. Example of
serve as consultants to the team(s). Each project is divided into
rubrics for the project evaluation is shown in Tables II and III
tasks, including a preliminary site visit to investigate the
below.

978-1-4799-8810-5/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE 96

 2015 IEEE 7th International Conference on Engineering Education (ICEED)

TABLE II. EXAMPLE OF TECHNICAL REPORT RUBRIC

Item
Introduction:
Problem of Statements,
Objectives, Scope of
Project
General Description:
System Functions,
User Interface,
General Constraint
Assumptions and
Dependencies
Requirement Details:
Customer Requirements,
Engineering Equipment,
System Input, System
Output, System Processes
Project Schedule and
Milestones
Good
9 - 10
Clearly states the Problem of
Statements, Objectives,
Scope of Project
The overview and operation of
the system is clearly described.
The details are given and well-
organized.
The project scope is clearly
defined.
Hardware schematics are
provided.
Circuit design considerations
and reasoning are provided in
detail.
The circuit is correctly
designed.
Flowcharts and software listing
are provided.
Flowchart is correctly designed
and explained.
The program is written
correctly.
Program is explained in detail.
Satisfactory
6-8
Problem of Statements,
Objectives, Scope of Project
reasonably stated.
The overview and operation of the
system is reasonably described.
The level of detail is reasonable
and sufficiently organized.
The project scope is adequately
defined.
Hardware schematics are
provided.
Circuit design considerations and
reasoning are given and
satisfactorily explained.
The circuit has few design flaws
that do not affect its overall
functionality.
Flowcharts and software listing
are provided.
Flowchart is designed with
minimum errors and explained.
The program has few mistakes.
Program is explained in
reasonable detail.
Unsatisfactory
3–5
Problem of Statements,
Objectives, Scope of Project are not
clearly stated.
The overview and operation of the
system is not properly described,
either because they are not described
in depth, or lacking in organization.
The project scope is inadequately
defined.
Hardware schematics are provided.
Circuit design seriously lacks
considerations and proper reasoning.
The circuit has serious design flaws
that impede the overall functionality of
the system.
Flowcharts and software listing are
provided.
Flowchart has some serious design
flaws that impede overall functionality
of the program. The flowchart is not
explained in the report.
The program has serious mistakes.
Program is not sufficiently explained.
Poor
0-2
Problem of Statements,
Objectives, Scope of Project are
not given or unacceptable.
Information on system
description and operation were
not given or unacceptable.
The project scope is not provided
or unacceptable.
Hardware schematics are not
provided or unacceptable.
Flowcharts and software listing
are not provided or are
unacceptable.
Flowchart is unacceptable.
The program is unacceptable.
The program is inadequately
explained.

Conclusions & Clearly summarized important
Recommendations design features and test results.
Recommendations are relevant
and described in sufficient
detail.
Satisfactorily summarized
important design features and test
results.
Recommendations are relevant
but the details are insufficiently
described.
Unsatisfactorily summarized
important design features and test
results.
Recommendations are relevant but
unsatisfactorily described.
Does not summarize important
design features and test results.
Recommendations are not
relevant or significantly lack in
detail.

TABLE III. EXAMPLE OF PROJECT EVALUATION RUBRIC

Good Satisfactory Unsatisfactory Poor

Item
9-10
Hardware The circuit fulfills the
functionality requirements
The whole circuit works
correctly
Software The program fulfills the
functionality requirements.
The program works
correctly.
The program flow is clear.
Efficient usage of
instructions, branching and
subroutines.
Creativity Significant additional
features are included in the
project.
Workmanship The circuit layout is done
using PCB. The circuit
layout is designed with
optimum circuit area and
number of connection.
The components are neatly
arranged and soldered.
A model / prototype is
design nicely using
engineering techniques and
materials.
6-8
The circuit fulfills most of
the requirements.
A large part of the circuit
works correctly.
The program fulfills most
of the require-ments.
A large part of the program
works correctly.
The program flow is clear
with minimal confusions.
Acceptable usage of
instructions, branching and
subroutines.
Additional features are
included in the project, but
not very significant.
The circuit layout is done
using PCB/Vero board.
The circuit layout is
designed with reasonable
circuit area and number of
connection.
The components are
reasonably arranged and
soldered.
A model / prototype is
design with minor defect.
Using proper engineering
techniques and materials.
3-5
The circuit fulfills only part of
the requirements.
Only a small part of the circuit
works correctly
The program fulfills only part
of the requirements.
Only small parts of the program
work correctly.
The program flow is unclear
with several major confusions.
Inefficient usage of
instructions, branching and
subroutines.
Additional features are
included in the project. Offer
no significant improvement on
the project.
The circuit layout is done using
Vero board. The circuit layout
is badly designed. A lot of
connections are made using
jumper wires.
The components are not neatly
arranged and badly soldered.
A model / prototype is design
but low of quality and bad
design. Lack of engineering
techniques and improper
materials.
0-2
The circuit does not meet the
requirements.
The circuit is unacceptable or does not
function at all
The program does not meet the
requirements.
The program does not function at all.
The program flow is extremely
confusing to the reader.
Wrong usage of instructions,
branching and subroutines.
No additional features are included in
the project.
The circuit layout is done using
breadboard.
Connections are done using only
jumper wires.
No model / prototype presented.
I/O compo-nents are left connected to
the PCB without any cover.

978-1-4799-8810-5/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE 97

 2015 IEEE 7th International Conference on Engineering Education (ICEED)
The rubrics shown in Table II indicated that, besides being
assessed on their engineering knowledge and implementation
skills, the students were evaluated for their project
managements skills based on the project progress against the
milestones. Although not shown in detail in the rubrics, the
students’ skills in financial management, solution formulation
was also evaluated based on their project objectives and
proposed solutions.
Table III provides the evaluation of project implementation
focusing on the technical elements whether the students
manage to adopt their previous and new knowledge into
solving the problems. This includes prototyping, and testing
skills.
III. DISCUSSION
A. Course Content
Basically, we can observe that the Capstone project was
able to cover some part of the EAC program requirements that
were not directly included in FYP course contents based on
Table I. Nevertheless, there are a few issues that can be
discussed regarding the course content of the Capstone project
implemented in the faculty. Based on the course content and
outcomes presented in the previous sections, we can deduce
that the course may have insufficient coverage on ethical
issues in engineering, as well as environmental and
sustainability related considerations, and long life learning. It
is a fact that the development of these skills are difficult to be
included in conventional engineering courses, however, there
are a lot of opportunity to include them in the Capstone project
course.
For example, the current syllabus did not have a specific
activity that requires the students to use engineering ethics in
solving problems, and in addition, they were mainly assessed
through their attendance and report writing. Rashid in [5]
suggested an approach that requires the students to describe
the engineering ethics framework and adopt them in their
project preparation and implementation. The students will
have to make clear which engineering ethical codes that were
applied, and show them in reports and presentation. In terms
of environmental and sustainability, the students need to be
exposed to engineering standards. For example, if they are
building a device that radiates electromagnetic signals in the
open environment, they need to adopt certain IEEE standards
for that purposes. This will ensure the students understanding
regarding contemporary issues in the real world involving
engineering practices.
B. Implementation of Assessment Method
A lot of engineering programs globally have implemented
the Capstone approach, nevertheless question arises whether
correct assessments were made to evaluate whether the
students obtained the expected skills. We may want to look at
our implementation and highlight some improvements that can
be made on the assessment methods. While this paper did not
include the in-depth marking schemes for each items for
Capstone project evaluation (due to space constraints), the
authors found insufficient assessment in ethics, team-work, as
978-1-4799-8810-5/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
well as project management skills. Although the rubrics have
some indicator of addressing these items, further
improvements could be made by introducing more specific
assessment methods. Example of some good practices can be
found in reports such as in [5-7], where we can see more
weightage and clear assessment were made.
For instance, marks should be given for any ethical,
environmental, safety codes that were used in the project
implementation, and the students should made clear of their
usage. We propose similar methods showed in [5] where the
marks are allocated only if the students can answer specific
questions such as which standards (i.e. IEEE, OSHA and etc.)
and where did they apply them.
Furthermore, for the items such as team-work and project
management, the authors also suggest that each contribution of
team member within the group will be taken into account
during final evaluation. To evaluate group and team work, we
may look into adding a peer to peer evaluation in the future as
part of the assessment for each student. The students for
example, could evaluate their team member’s openness to
another team member’s idea, whether the student shows a
cooperative and positive attitude, and their contribution to the
team work. In the peer assessment, the ethical assessment
could also be evaluated if their team member is on time for
team meetings, provide quality work and meet team deadline
for assignments.
However, it is important to set up a criteria and guidelines
for the students to assess each other’s contribution in the
group/team. A research by Kennedy [8] showed that a badly
designed student peer to peer assessment in a team project
could be counterproductive and add tension to the team. In
addition, there is reluctance, especially among Asian students
to evaluate their peers. Further discussion on this will be
discussed in future publications.
C. Evaluation of course effectiveness
As part of the OBE framework that requires continuous
improvements of the program through CQI activities, the
implementation of Capstone project must be evaluated in
terms of its effectiveness before and after implementation.
Besides measuring the course outcomes as part of the OBE
CQI activity, it is recommended to implement self-assessment
surveys to the students in order to evaluate whether the
activity in Capstone really benefit the students. The self-
assessment survey can be done in many forms, such as a
weighting scale or subjective questions related to their own
understanding and gain. Some example of the survey
questions proposed in [5] can be adopted for this purpose
(refer to Table IV for an example). Furthermore, we also need
to do a detail benchmarking with other practicing institutions.
IV. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
The faculty of electrical engineering of UiTM is
implementing Capstone Project besides the conventional FYP
course to improve the program contents and delivery towards
98
 2015 IEEE 7th International Conference on Engineering Education (ICEED)

TABLE III. EXAMPLE OF SELF-ASSESSMENT SURVEY FORMS

As a result of my enrollment in capstone project course, I acquired the following abilities:

Item Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly

agree Disagree
1. Apply engineering knowledge to the analysis
of electrical engineering

2. Identify, formulate and solve electrical

engineering problems

3. Design and conduct experiments, as well as

to analyze and interpret data
4. Function effectively on multi-disciplinary
fields

5. Describe and analyze the ethical and

professional responsibilities of the electrical
engineer. Make and defend ethical judgements in
keeping with professional standards.

6. Describe the impact of electrical engineering

solutions in a global, economic, and
environmental context.

7. Use techniques, skills and modern engineering

tools for analysis and design of electrical
engineering problems

fulfilling the EAC engineering program requirements. The
implementation of the Capstone course covered the delivery
and assessment regarding team-work, and project management
related skills more than the conventional FYP course, since
the Capstone requires students to work with real problems
provided by end-user, in groups, while FYP tends to give
individual tasks to students [4]. Therefore, emphasis on real
processes of project commissioning, management, and
evaluation can be experienced by the students in Capstone
projects. Nevertheless, we are still improving in terms of
course content, delivery and assessments. Some of the
highlighted areas are the delivery and assessment on
engineering ethics, and sustainability related activity. Our
future plans will also include evaluation of pre-and post-
implementation of the course through self-assessment surveys.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Professor Muhammad
Harun Rashid for his guidance in constructing the Capstone
Project syllabus in the faculty as part of his involvement as the
external examiner for our electronics engineering program in
UiTM.
REFERENCES
[1] N,M. Nor, N. Rajab, and K.R. Salim, “International trends and the
profiles of Malaysian engineers,” Europen Journal of Scientific
Research, vol. 28, pp. 301-309, 2009.
[2] Engineering Accrediation Council, Engineering Programs Accrediation
Manual 2012, ed. 2012.
[3] M.H. Abdul Halim, and N. Bunyamin, “A comparison between CDIO
and EAC engineering education learning outcomes,” in 2015 IEEE 7th
Conf. on Engineering Education, 2015. (accepted for publication)
[4] M.H. Abdul Halim, N. Bunyamin, A. Imazawa, N. Naoe, and M. Ito
“The role of Final Year Project and Capstone Project in undergraduate
engineering education in Malaysia and Japan,” in 2014 IEEE 6th Conf.
on Engineering Education, pp. 1-6, 2014.
[5] M. H. Rashid, The Process of Outcome-Based Education. Kuala
Lumpur, UiTM Press, 2012.
[6] D. Knight, and D. Kotys-Schwartz, “Once again around the double
triangle: A multi-rater assessment of Capstone design skills” in 2013
IEEE Frontiers in Education Conf., pp. 1018-1020, 2013.
[7] D. Montford, S. Brown, and J.M. Pegg, “An investigation of the
adoption of an assessment instrument for capstone design courses” in
2009 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conf., pp. 1-6, 2013.
[8] G.J. Kennedy, “Peer-assessment in Group Projects: Is It Worth It?,” in
2005 7th Australasian conf. on computing education, page 59-65, 2005.

978-1-4799-8810-5/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE

View publication stats
99