Basic Capstone Requirements and Framework

A Capstone Project must demonstrate the following general characteristics.  Each characteristic can be satisfied in many different ways depending on your topic, discipline, and the approach you choose to take.  But, taken together, they represent the basic capstone requirements and framework.

Originality:  You must reach your own deep understanding of some clearly defined and focused topic of interest.  You must formulate your own perspective on an issue and draw your own conclusions.  The final project and form of presentation also can draw upon your originality and creativity.

Independence:  Although you will have a capstone mentor as a guide and domain expert, you will work primarily on your own. 

Appropriate Scope:  In terms of credit hours, the Capstone Project is equivalent to a BIS course.  You should plan to spend at least as much time and energy on your Capstone Project as you have devoted to your most challenging course in the BIS program.  In terms of the project itself, you have just one semester to complete your research and writing.  Therefore, you’ll need to keep your project within a limited (doable) scope.

Orderly & Objective Process of Inquiry: The Capstone Project is your opportunity to demonstrate your facility with those methodologies and skills – those methods of inquiry – appropriate to your area of investigation.  These will normally include the ability to ask the right questions, to synthesize ideas, to identify and use evidence, to draw and support conclusions, to recognize compelling research, to communicate your ideas in a particular way, or to solve a problem using a specific set of tools.

Intellectual Stretch:  The Capstone Project should take you to a place where you have not been before and, perhaps, did not even think you could reach.