Information Technology 474

I. Course Title: Secure Software Engineering Capstone Course

II. Course Number: ITEC 474

III. Credit Hours: 3 credits

IV. Prerequisites: ITEC 473 (Grade of “C” or better), ITEC 421 (Grade of “C” or better)

V. Course Description: 

The capstone course presents students an opportunity to develop innovative solutions to real industry problems. Working together with industry leaders and ITEC professors, students take on complex and challenging technological problems. The goal of this course is to develop real systems for the selected project, test it in front of real users, adjust the designs given their feedback, and present it to the instructors and client.

VI. Detailed Description of Content of the Course:

The course is structured into four three-week sprints.  At the beginning of the class, the students are required to provide an overall example of a high-level development plan. At the end of each sprint, the students are required to perform a Sprint Review (with the sponsor and instructor) and Retrospective.

VI. Detailed Description of Conduct of Course:

This will be a primarily asynchronous, online course with online meetings to accompany the asynchronous modules.

This course will explore advanced computing concepts such as:

  1. Cloud Computing
  2. Scrum and Agile development tracking 
  3. Parallel and Distributed processing
  4. Continuous Integration/Continuous Development (CI/CD)
  5. Issue Tracking
  6. Prototyping and Wireframes
  7. Software Performance Modeling
  8. Development and Prototyping Tools
  9. Quality Assurance
  10. Usability Evaluation
  11. Unit Testing
  12. Distributed Version Control

VII. Goals and Objectives of the Course:

Students who complete the course will be able to:

  1. Work as a part of a team to plan activities, choose leadership, delegate responsibility, and follow a large software development project from inception to completion.
  2. Set and meet both short- and long-term goals.
  3. Explain and apply the workflows and phases of an agile life cycle model.
  4. Complete both high-level and detailed software design, along with the ability to create associated written documentation. 
  5. Perform risk evaluation and develop mitigation strategies. 

VIII. Assessment Measures:

Participation in the design of a large software project is crucial to the successful completion of this course. At least one exam will also be used in evaluating the student's level of achievement.

Review and Approval

August 2020