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On Faculty Supervision in Industry Projects

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DOI: 10.1145/3209635.3209648

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 On Faculty Supervision in Industry Projects
Michal Aibin
British Columbia Institute of Technology
Burnaby, BC
maibin@bcit.ca
ABSTRACT
We are interested in determining the most effective way to deliver
instruction through extended industry projects. The traditional
approach involves a university supervisor that guides students
through the project in a standard classroom environment. However,
following the flipped classroom model, much of this guidance can
be delivered online so that students can use the classroom time for
collaboration and interaction with the industry partner. In this small
pilot study, we compare two different delivery models for industry
projects courses, focusing on student satisfaction and project suc-
cess. Results are discussed, and we propose some general guidelines
for the delivery of industry project courses. The main conclusion is
that providing more learning materials online and allowing then
more time to work as a team in flip-blended environment resulted
in a much efficient delivery of projects.
KEYWORDS
flip-blended, project courses, industry sponsors, education, student
supervision
ACM Reference Format:
Michal Aibin and Aaron Hunter. 2018. On Faculty Supervision in Industry
Projects. In WCCCE ’18: 23rd Western Canadian Conference on Computing
Education, May 4–5, 2018, Victoria, BC, Canada. ACM, New York, NY, USA,
5 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3209635.3209648
1 INTRODUCTION
At many universities and colleges, industrial projects play an im-
portant role in the curriculum. We are interested in the following
question: to what extent must students be supervised or guided by
academic faculty in the completion of such projects. In this paper,
we look at two delivery models of industry project courses. One is a
traditional model involving substantial classroom time and explicit
involvement by faculty supervisors. The second model is inspired
by the flipped classroom approach, and it greatly reduces contact
hours with faculty during project completion. The two delivery
models are compared in terms of both student satisfaction and
client satisfaction.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In the next
Section, we introduce related works and description of flip-blended
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https://doi.org/10.1145/3209635.3209648
Aaron Hunter
British Columbia Institute of Technology
Burnaby, BC
aaron_hunter@bcit.ca
classrooms and industry sponsored project courses, followed by
a study context. Next, we present the course design comparison.
Finally, we provide survey results on a client and students feed-
back, followed by a discussion and conclusion. To the best of our
knowledge, this is the first study that compares flip-blended envi-
ronment with traditional guidance in industry sponsored project
type courses in post-secondary education.
2 PRELIMINARIES
2.1 Flipped Classrooms
The term flipping the classroom was first used in [2], though the
fundamental idea was introduced much earlier [13]. Broadly, the
flipped classroom approach is a form of blended learning, where
class time is no longer used by instructors for talking and deliv-
ering material in the traditional way. Instead, students are given
learning materials to review outside of the classroom, which then
allows class time to be used for practice and demonstration with
the instructor acting as a mentor or guide.
Blended learning is intended to take advantage of the best fea-
tures of both online learning and face-to-face learning. By using
educational technology to deliver material outside the classroom,
the students should be able to learn the same things that previously
were delivered by lecture. This opens up the possibility of individual
interaction and collaboration with the instructor in the classroom.
It has been suggested that this framework can create to “meaning-
ful learning experiences,” that lead to deeper understanding of the
course material [11].
While the advantages of a flipped classroom have been discussed
in popular media and educational literature, there has been rela-
tively little empirical evidence that this approach leads to more
efficient or effective learning [1]. This is not to suggest that the
topic has not been the focus of research; there have been a variety of
case studies on the topic [14]. For example, flipped classrooms have
been explored in computer science [8], medicine [16], mathematics
[15], business [10], and history [12]. In each case, the results of the
study focus on lessons learned and advantages for a particular type
of class; general results are difficult to state conclusively.
Rather than focusing on an abstract notion of “effectiveness,”
researchers have also focuses on issues of related to students’ per-
ception of the flipped classroom. For example, it has been proposed
that the flipped classroom may lead to increased motivation for
students [1]. It has also been argued that the benefits may not
be uniform. Specifically, it has been shown that some students are
more prone to accept the flipped environment while others will tend
to resist [6]. It has been suggested that this difference in students
preferences is more easily addressed by implementing a flipped
approach throughout an entire course, rather than just for isolated
WCCCE ’18, May 4–5, 2018, Victoria, BC, Canada
aspects. It is worth noting that these studies on student attitudes
and preferences tend to be based on direct student feedback.
2.2 Industry Sponsored Projects Courses
Project-based learning refers to the style of instruction in which stu-
dents are given large, practical projects to work on and explore over
a period of weeks or months. It has been suggested that this offers
greater learning opportunities as students are able to put sustained
thought into a single problem, identifying and solving key aspects of
the problem in an authentic setting [5]. At the post-secondary level,
one natural way to implement project based learning is through
project courses where students work for an entire semester on a
single project. In applied technology programs, the authenticity
of the project is improved if it is suggested by an industry partner.
In this paper, we use the term industry projects course to refer to
a semester-long project that students undertake in collaboration
with a sponsor from industry.
Flipped classrooms and project-based learning are both well
studied concepts in the education literature. However, it is not
entirely obvious how best to proceed when we combine the two. In
other words, when students are acclimated to a flipped environment,
how does this impact the delivery of project courses? To what extent
does a teacher need to provide explicit “instruction” while guiding
students through the project?
2.3 Study Context
The British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) is a polytech-
nic institution in Greater Vancouver, offering a variety of diploma,
bachelor’s and masters degree options. In Computing, students can
choose between two distinct programs. The Computer Systems
Technology (CST) diploma is focused on software development,
with an emphasis on programming. The Computer Information
Technology (CIT) diploma is focused on Information Technology,
with an emphasis on technology management and configuration.
The technical content of the CST and CIT diplomas is different,
and so too is the delivery model. While the CST diploma is delivered
in a standard classroom environment, the CIT diploma recently
converted the entire curriculum to blended delivery. As such, every
course in the program includes an online component to be com-
pleted prior to the face-to-face meetings. The actual classrooms
have even be renovated to encourage collaboration, by grouping
students in clusters with individual screens around the edge of the
room. There is no “front” of the room, because the classes do not
include traditional lectures. CIT diploma holds its classes in newly
renovated Downtown Campus (DTC), whereas CST program is
located in the main, Burnaby Campus (BBY).
Almost all of the courses in the two diplomas are different, with
a lone exception. Both programs include an Industry Sponsored
Project course, in which students work in groups to solve a problem
for an industry partner. The goal of this course is to give students
experience working on a practical problem, managing client ex-
pectations, and collaborating as a team. The delivery of the course
is different in each program, in keeping with the distinct deliv-
ery models. The purpose of this paper is to compare the deliver
of the course in both formats, in order to identify strengths and
weaknesses.
Michal Aibin and Aaron Hunter
3 THE STUDY
As noted previously, general conclusions about flipped classrooms
can be hard derive based on individual case studies. For this reason,
our study focuses exclusively on the delivery of Industry Project
courses. Such courses are common in a polytechnic environment,
but little work has been done demonstrating how they should be
best delivered.
Our student proceeds in three steps. First, through discussions
with the Faculty leaders for the Industry Sponsored Projects, we
simply describe how each project course is delivered. This is a qual-
itative description, emphasizing the differences between the two
courses. Second, we look at recent project results from the perspec-
tive of the clients. This involves examining any failed projects, and
also looking at explicit client feedback on their experience. Finally,
we create a survey to collect student opinions on the courses.
This is a preliminary study, aiming to identify any key differences
between the courses that could be explored in greater detail in a
future project.
4 COURSE COMPARISON
4.1 Computer Systems Technology
The CST project course is a 15 week course that allows students to
work with an industrial partner to develop a solution to a practical
problem. Students are put in groups of 4. The course has a lead
instructor, as well as a set of faculty supervisors. Each student group
is assigned a faculty supervisor, and they are given a project from
a pool of projects that have been requested from external, industry
clients.
Each group has 4 scheduled meetings per week, each of which
is roughly one hour:
• Team meeting: Includes only student team members (no
faculty members present).
• Class meeting: This is a one hour class attended by all
students. The class is delivered in the lecture-style, by the
lead instructor.
• Supervisor meeting: Includes student team members, along
with their assigned faculty supervisor.
• Client meeting: Includes student team members, along
with industry client (no faculty members present).
It is worth clarifying the role of lead instructor and the faculty
supervisor. The lead instructor actually delivers course content
to the students, primarily focused on project management and
client interaction. The team supervisor does not deliver general
material in this manner. Instead, they help ensure that the project
is the appropriate level of difficulty, and they help the students by
answering both technical and non-technical questions at the team
meetings.
In terms of evaluation, the students hand in status reports and
meeting minutes to the lead instructor every week. There are four
larger checkpoints involving specific documents that are graded.
At the end of the term, BCIT organizes the "expo" with student
projects, so every faculty and sponsor can see the final outcome.
On Faculty Supervision in Industry Projects WCCCE ’18, May 4–5, 2018, Victoria, BC, Canada

4.2 Computer Information Technology Q4 Testing/evaluation: The team has tested/evaluated the work
The CIT project course is also a 15 week course with groups of thoroughly and I have had a few days to look it over and test
4 students. The deliverables and learning outcomes are the same, it myself. I found only a few minor problems when doing
thus we can directly compare the performance of various groups the acceptance testing.
of students. Q5 Overall: I am happy with the work and effort of the students.
There are several differences between CIT and CST project I am happy with the way the students have dealt with me,
courses. Let’s first focus on the course design. There’s only one lead the company and their work.
instructor, and there’s no faculty supervisors. The job of the lead We collected forms from the clients participating in the Fall semester
instructor is to receive feedback from both - students and sponsors - of 2017. There were 16 student groups in CST program and 9 groups
and post online materials to help students successfully complete the in CIT program.
project. It is worth noting that there are no lectures in CIT program The basic descriptive results from the survey are included in
in this course. Students work more independently, but also with Table 1.
greater responsibility. The lead instructor is kind of a scrum master
for the projects. Table 1: CST Client Feedback
Each group has the following scheduled:
• Team meeting: Includes only student team members (no Question Mean Mode
faculty members present). The group is scheduled to work 1 4.2 5
on ISSP projects for a one and a half of the day (8 + 4 hours). 2 4.4 5
They also don’t have other classes on these two days. 3 4.3 5
• Class meeting: This is a two hours review class attended 4 4.2 5
by all students to collect the feedback on projects by the lead 5 4.4 5
instructor - it happens every second week.
• Client meeting: Includes student team members, along
with industry client (no faculty members present) - at least The results suggest that clients were happy overall. The mode
one hour a week. value here indicates that the most common response was complete
As we can observe there is no direct team supervision. Instead, satisfaction with the project. In the written responses to qualitative
students are scheduled to work more together as a team, in the same questions, the vast majority of clients also included comments
location as other groups. It also helps to exchange the knowledge praising the students for their excellent work.
between the groups. The mean is slightly lower than the mode due to two groups that
In terms of evaluation, the students meet during the class meet- were less successful. Each of these groups received a 2 (out of 5) for
ing and they have 3 larger checkpoints, where the feedback from the overall score, because they did not complete the project to the
sponsor is collected and incorporated by the lead instructor. The satisfaction of the client. One of the groups appears simply to have
same as in CIT, course ends with final project presentations, open failed to do enough work. The other group encountered problems
to everyone. early, and they did not ask for help. As a result, the project was not
successful, despite the fact that the early problems could have been
fixed.
5 RESULTS
The CIT client feedback is included in Table 2.
5.1 Client Feedback
In both courses, clients were given a feedback form at the comple- Table 2: CIT Client Feedback
tion of the course. The following questions were given, and the
clients were asked to give a numeric score from 1 (very unsatisfied) Question Mean Mode
to 5 (highly satisfied).
1 4.8 5
Q1 Delivery/Hand-off: The students have delivered their work 2 4.7 5
to me and I have everything I expected including any docu- 3 4.8 5
mentation or other artifacts that were specified. 4 4.6 5
Q2 Installation: The project has been installed on site or is 5 4.9 5
live on-line. In the case where this was not possible or not
expected the work has never-the-less been delivered in a
timely and organized manner for my review and acceptance As we can observe the results are very good. What is more
testing. important all groups delivered the projects in time with complete
Q3 Documentation: The students have shown me clearly how scope that was requested by a client. It is also worth noting that
to install and use the work and left me with appropriate one project was carried over from the CST Winter 2017 semester
installation documentation. If the work is incomplete they (before the Fall 2017), as it was unsuccessful there. When the project
have shown exactly what is there and documented existing was done by a group of CIT students, it was completed successfully
work so that others can pick up and complete the work. with a 5/5 sponsor satisfaction rating.
WCCCE ’18, May 4–5, 2018, Victoria, BC, Canada
5.2 Student Feedback
We also collected feedback from the students. The following ques-
tions were asked, using the online, anonymous survey:
Q1 In reference to a faculty supervisor vs the sponsor con-
tact, what ratio of contact would you prefer in the ISSP
course? (scale 1-5, where 1 is only the faculty supervision
and 5 is only the sponsor contact)
Q2 What do you feel your engagement level was?
(scale 1-5, where 1 is low, 5 is high)
Q3 Would you choose to work for the company you col-
laborated with on the ISSP project?
(yes - 2/no - 0/maybe - 1)
Results are available in Tables 3 and 4, for CST and CIT programs,
respectively.
Table 3: CST Student Feedback
Question Mean Mode
1 3.4 3 It is also worth noting that there is a possible pedagogical ex-
2 3.1 3 planation for the difference in client feedback that is not related to
3 0.6 0 the number of hours spent with clients. The faculty supervisors for
Table 4: CIT Student Feedback
Question Mean Mode
1 3.6 4
2 3.8 4 6.2
3 1.2 2
Although the differences in the collected feedback are too small
to be significant, there are some general patterns in the data. First,
students from both programs tend to request more contact with
a client than faculty supervision. The reported engagement level
by CIT students was slightly higher as well. The most interesting
difference may have been question 3. The most common response
from CIT students was that they would accept a job offer from
their client, whereas CST students more commonly would not. All
of the projects delivered in the course were focusing on software
development.
6 DISCUSSION
6.1 Client Feedback Comparison
As this is just a small pilot study, the amount of client feedback
available is quite small. Moreover, the client feedback scores in
Tables 1 and 2 are very similar. However, overall, the scores are
slightly higher for the students in the CIT program.
The major difference between the delivery models is that the CST
students have weekly meetings with a faculty supervisor, whereas
the CIT students do not have such a meeting. In the preliminary re-
sults here, this extra time with the supervisor is actually correlating
with lower client feedback.
There are many possible explanations for this difference. Al-
though students from both programs are supposed to meet with
Michal Aibin and Aaron Hunter
their clients at least once a week, anecdotal evidence suggests that
some of the CST groups were meeting less often. If this is indeed
the case, it could explain the difference in client feedback. The more
significant question is then the following: why would the students
in the (traditional) delivery model reduce client meetings? Several
possible explanations can be proposed:
• Meeting fatigue: The need for supervisor meetings on a
weekly basis may contribute to a reduction in client meet-
ings.
• Physical location: The CIT program is delivered at the
downtown campus, closer to many client offices.
• Course schedules: The CIT program has one day specifi-
cally used for Industry Sponsored Project Courses, which
makes scheduling of the meetings easier.
There are certainly other possibilities as well. Of course, a larger
study is required to draw definite conclusions.
projects often have educational goals in mind for the students that
are independent of client success. For example, faculty supervisors
are more interested in students learning best practices for software
development in general, rather than simply pleasing the current
client.
Student Feedback Comparison
One important aspect of the student feedback is the common per-
spective with respect to the balance of client and supervisor super-
vision. It seems that all of the students prefer more contact with the
client. This is actually the desired goal of the CIT program, where
supervisor meetings have been removed to focus more on direct
client interaction.
It is also interesting to consider why the CIT students felt more
inclined to take a job with the client in the future. One explana-
tion for this result is simply the fact that they may have worked
more closely with their client throughout the project, leading to
a more positive relationship. This is also a common characteris-
tic for Agile (Scrum [7, 9]) project delivery, in contrast to more
structured requirements gathering at the beginning of the course
(Waterfall [4]). As such, the information passed on in faculty meet-
ings may sometimes run counter to client desires. This would be
positive. Moreover, the studies shown that the iterative approach
can lead to less mistakes, thus, more successful project delivery [3].
However, there is also the possibility that this difference is ac-
tually due to competing messages that the student receive from
the faculty supervisor. A faculty supervisor may suggest solutions
and approaches that the client does not like, and in some cases the
faculty supervisor may even question that value of the project or
company. As a result, it is not surprising that students with regu-
larly faculty supervisor meetings may not align as closely with the
client. It is not completely clear if this is positive or negative; one
may need to revisit the goals of the project course.
 On Faculty Supervision in Industry Projects
6.3 How to Build a Better Industry Project
Course
In this section, we provide some speculative conclusions from our
study. We start again with the caveat that this is just a preliminary
study with limited data. Nevertheless, it provides motivation for a
larger study as well as a reformulation of the way we view project
courses.
First, it is worth noting that the results presented here focus
on client satisfaction and student satisfaction. These are certainly
both important, but the pedagogical goals of the course should
still take precedence. When students take a project course, we
would like them to learn about problem solving in an authentic
setting. Although we want to produce successful projects, it is
more important that the students learn something about teamwork,
project management, and (sometimes) software development.
Two questions are raised by our study:
(1) How much direct faculty supervision is appropriate for an
industry sponsored project course?
(2) How many faculty supervisors should be involved?
Our results suggest that, if we focus on client and student satis-
faction, then we really are not losing anything by dropping direct
faculty supervision meetings from the course. In fact, arguably,
both faculty and students seem more satisfied when we do not
have these additional meetings. We have not directly discussed the
second question thus far, but it is important as well. In both the
CST and CIT project courses, there is a lead instructor that delivers
classroom material. However, in the CST delivery model, there is an
additional faculty member that directly supervises student teams.
So the CST students essentially are receiving guidance from two
different faculty members on the same project.
When developing a project course, we need to determine the
learning outcomes at the outset. Some of these learning outcomes
will be “academic” outcomes that must be delivered by a faculty
member, while some will be practical outcomes related to project
success. Our results suggest that the academic outcomes may in
fact be delivered through a flip-blended model. In other words,
the course instructor can prepare suitable material to be delivered
online and through occasional classroom meetings. If this material is
delivered effectively through a single voice, then one can revisit the
role of the faculty supervisors. Our preliminary results suggest that
it is unclear how this additional level of supervision is benefiting
the clients or students.
7 CONCLUSION
In this paper, we have set out to examine the role of faculty super-
vision in industry sponsored project courses. Two different project
courses have been considered, one in which students are directly
supervised by a faculty member and one in which they are not. Of
course, in both cases, there is a course instructor that guides the
delivery and evaluation of the course material. The difference is
whether or not regular meetings are required with an additional
faculty member to keep the students on track.
This is really a pilot study to determine if this issue is worth
further study. Our preliminary results suggest that this is indeed the
case, based on client and student feedback results. We acknowledge
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WCCCE ’18, May 4–5, 2018, Victoria, BC, Canada
that the factors impacting these results are complex; it is hard to de-
termine exactly what role the delivery model has played. Moreover,
it is not necessarily clear that client and student satisfaction are the
key issues at stack. However, these industry sponsored projects play
an important role in the education of computing students at many
post-secondary institutions. It is therefore important to examine
the delivery of such courses, in order to ensure students are getting
as much as possible from the opportunity.
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