Good practice guidelines for managing, supervising and assessing final year engineering projects

Final year projects are important in engineering programs because they provide students with an opportunity to show that their study developed in them professional capabilities expected of graduating engineers, in particular, a capacity to personally manage and conduct a complex, open-ended project. These projects also indicate of program standards for accreditation. However a collaborative project moderation process between two institutions and subsequent discussions within the engineering education community has identified many issues and concerns, opportunities for enhancing learning and improving project supervision and management, and for developing broad consensus about good project supervision, management, assessment and standards. The authors have initiated a pilot project to survey current practice, develop good practice guidelines and prepare resources to be shared with project course coordinators and during this process to develop a community of practice and scholarship in the area of final year engineering projects.