Capstone project guidelines
The project should be based primarily from your experiences within the MDE program and how they may relate to your current professional circumstances or future aspirations. You should reflect on the courses that you have completed, and determine if a particular aspect of distance education has piqued your interest, which you wish to pursue further.
The project is intended as both a reflective and a constructive activity. It requires that you reflect on the knowledge and experience you have thus far gained in the field, and to then create a new product that represents the work of a professional in the field. You might thus think of the outcome of this effort as an “apprentice” piece whereby you have an opportunity to create something that demonstrates your continuing professional development.
The project is the final activity of a graduate course of study. It should be:
- A reflection of the skills and knowledge gained in all the previous courses that you have taken in the program;
- An opportunity to engage in more in-depth research and/or analysis than was allowed in previous courses;
- A measure of your competency as a graduated distance education professional; and
- A learning process that supports your future professional development.
Thus, planning on simply creating an online course or program is not an acceptable final capstone project. This activity, although frequently part of a distance educator duties, is considered a routinely activity. Your final product needs to go beyond such kind of activities. It needs to demonstrate “more in-depth research and analysis” and a mastery of knowledge in the distance education arena.
The project could take many forms, so you should not confine your thinking about this assignment as simply choosing a topic and then writing a major “term” paper. As examples, you could consider:
- Identifying a research question that requires integrating and analyzing the literature in distance education;
- comparing models, frameworks, theories and concepts that address particular issues and/or practices in distance education;
- evaluating existing distance education processes, models, or artifacts, and generating a possible set of recommendations for enhancement and/or change;
- designing an action research project, wherein you identify an issue or problem, conduct research and propose a plan based on your findings and analysis.
The expectation is that whatever direction you decide to pursue to satisfy the project requirement, it will convincingly show that you have achieved a high level of knowledge and/or mastery in the area you select. Therefore, if, for example, you want to further develop a topic similar to a paper completed for a previous MDE course, the project must be a substantive enhancement of any prior work. It would not be acceptable to state to faculty that your style is succinct and then submit a short paper to satisfy the Project requirement at the end of the term.
Whatever topic and approach you have in mind must be written up in a project proposal, and will be subject to faculty approval before you proceed.
Note: UMUC has specific policies when it comes to research related to human subjects. It is our experience that projects that involve surveying UMUC students outside of a specific classroom have not been approved, so we do not encourage students to base their project work on this kind of research methodology. If you wish to survey students within your our class, you need to discuss this with your instructor and get his/her approval.
OMDE 670 will be graded on a pass/fail basis.
Your project should cover the following structure:
1. Abstract
2. Introduction
3. Literature Review
4. Analysis (can be a sequence of subsections, named as one wishes)
5. Conclusions
6. References
The following rubric http://deoracle.org/learning-objects/sample-grading-rubric-for-term-papers-essays.html will be used to assess the project components mentioned above.
We would like to encourage you to consider the possibility of continuing your work on your topic, envisioning possible venues for publication. We believe that the MDE faculty might be interested in supporting you with this endeavor.
