Use of large databases for group projects at the nexus of teaching and research

Final year, group (capstone) projects in computing disciplines are often expected to fill multiple roles: in addition to allowing students to learn important domain-specific knowledge, they should reinforce computing and software engineering concepts and provide for the acquisition of transferable skills. For motivational and pedagogical reasons, it is clearly preferable that such projects respond to real needs, be those in research or industry. We describe two student projects based on a large repository of usage data and integrated into a course in Professional Computing. These projects fulfilled the objectives outlined above and were closely linked to the research of the first author. We suggest that similar projects based on large databases may offer a transferable paradigm for others to follow. Finally, we outline some important elements for a successful group project based on a large database. Categories and Subject Descriptors H3.3 [Information Storage and Retrieval]: Informati...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: ITICSE
• Authors: Richard C. Thomas, Rebecca Mancy
• Keywords: Important Domain-specific Knowledge, ITICSE 2004, Large Database, Project