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Report Brief

Research on Building Education & Workforce Capacity in Systems Engineering, (referred to as the SE Capstone Project), is conducting research to understand the methods through which systems engineering learning and career interest may be increased among undergraduate and graduate engineering students. This research is being conducted in the context of 14 “capstone” courses, in most cases as an integrative culminating, project-based course involving teams of students working together on the development of a product or prototype that addresses a real Department of Defense need. Implemented as pilot courses in eight civilian and six military universities, these 14 institutions are piloting methods, materials, and approaches to create new courses or enhance existing courses to embed, infuse, and augment systems engineering knowledge, as defined by the SPRDE-SE/PSE Competency Model, among undergraduate and graduate students. This report is a snapshot of progress and preliminary findings as reported in SE Capstone partners’ interim reports as of January 2011 which, in most cases, represents the midpoint of their course implementation.

This report contains a snapshot of the richness of the 14 SE Capstone courses that have been and are being implemented at 14 institutions. At this point in project implementation, it is not possible to provide an analysis of student learning outcomes. The final report will aim to connect the course content and organization, including materials created by faculty as well as the contributions of external mentors, with impacts on student learning of SE content, their interest in SE careers, and their interest in DoD problem areas and careers.