Making it Work in the Virtual Capstone Climate and Beyond: Project-based Perspectives Across a Variety of Programs and Universities

Abstract Project-based learning (PBL) is one of the most effective engineering education tools to teach capstone design courses. PBL allows faculty to expose their students to more complex, open-ended, real-world problems typically using faculty-led or industry-led project scopes within collaborative teaching environments. With all the changes in the educational landscape due to COVID-19, capstone design courses that use PBL pedagogical approaches are uniquely affected by it. With several transitions to virtual course delivery and back, capstone faculty are now challenged with helping students meet project objectives and deliverables, manage sponsor expectations, and foster student team cohesion in virtual settings, all while fulfilling the course learning outcomes. This research was conducted by capstone faculty at four different universities, and objectives are twofold. The first objective is to understand the challenges faced by the capstone faculty due to transitions to largely remote capstone offerings, especially within the areas of managing sponsorship and the associated final project deliverables. The second objective is to open a dialogue in the broader capstone community to harness input and share best practices to overcome and even rise to these challenges. In order to understand these challenges, first a survey was conducted with the broader capstone community to include multitude of persons associated with capstone at a variety of institutions. This included capstone directors, coordinators, instructors, and advisors. Findings from this research indicated the commonality of challenges faced by capstone faculty regardless of engineering major or type of institutions. Select results from the survey were curated and shared via a panel at the recent ASEE annual conference. The panel served as a platform to bring together the capstone community for continued conversations. This paper will present an expanded overview of survey results and shared panel experiences while offering recommendations for ongoing opportunities to adapt- for -success in the virtual capstone climate and beyond.