# Welcome to IT4983 - IT Capstone Development

The goal of this course is to apply and examine your skills in a real world context. The course brings together teams of senior students in Information Technology to address complex challenges and identify new opportunities for information technology professionals. In measuring your progress toward the BSIT degree, we will assess what you have accomplished, and will project what you will have to offer as an IT professional in real-world organizations. Students will create value-added deliverables in the following three categories:

- Business-Value: Prepare you to assist in analyzing and developing IT solutions to meet business needs.
- Personal-Value: Prompt you to assess what you have learned and produce a career portfolio to demonstrate your competence that will add value to your applications for jobs and/or a graduate school. Enhance your ability to function as an effective IT professional and/or project manager.
- Degree-Value: Be able to assess the key knowledge and skills throughout the BSIT degree program and the ability to articulate their relevance to career goals.

## Student Interaction

This is an online course and students have the option to communicate with faculty through several technologies such as conference calls, KSU email, Blackboard Collaborate, etc. Students are not required to come to campus to complete course requirements. Students have the option to come to campus to meet with the instructor at any time to discuss or seek guidance for their projects.

## Course Navigation

By now you are familiar with the format of the courses in the IT department. Here is a suggested method to begin looking at the course content. Start by reading the information in this Orientation module. This will provide you an overview of the course, suggested navigation for the course, useful student resources, and various resources for your projects.

The resources in the Student Resources module will make it easier for you to find necessary resources as needed. Since this is an online course you will be responsible to use and navigate Desire2Learn and the variety of technology tools within the course such as open and read Adobe files, web links, etc. To assist you with the use of the various tools, please review the information in the Student Resources module for further assistance to resources and help. In addition, the syllabus has information about students with disabling conditions, which this course adheres and will assist you if you need accommodation. The technologies used in this course are accessible to students with disabilities. Text files are available in PDF or Word format and are screen reader accessible. Please see the statement from Adobe and Microsoft for additional details:

http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/reader/

http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/office2013/default.aspx

In addition to the Orientation module and Student Resources module, you will find resources and best practices to help you create a career portfolio in Module 1. There are 7 sub-modules listed in the Module 2. They will provie you with resources, templates, and materials that help guide you through the projects. You will also submit the assignments and project milestones by accessing the Dropbox folders located in each module. Below is a full list of modules that you will find in the Table of Contents in the Content tool.

1. Orientation
2. Module 1: Career Porfolio
3. Module 2: Capstone Project

- Project Planning
- Milestone 1 & 2
- Midterm Peer Eval
- Milestone 3
- Dept Presentation
- Project Conclusion
- Career Portfolio

4. Student Resources

## Course Objectives

1. Apply IT concepts, applications, best practices, and standards to create a solution or report that addresses real business needs.
2. Practice soft skills such as project planning and management, research and learning, communication, writing, presentation, and team work in a real world IT project.
3. Produce a career portfolio for use in employment or graduate applications.