Conference 2024

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CONFERENCE FORMAT

The goal of the 2024 Capstone Design Conference is to provide a forum for faculty, staff, students, and industry representatives to share ideas about improving and/or starting engineering capstone design courses. To foster meaningful discussion and outcomes, the conference includes interactive panel sessions, poster presentations, workshops, and industry demonstrations. We welcome faculty, administrators, industry representatives, and students as participants in this engaging conference.

CONFERENCE HOST

The conference will be held June 3 to 5, 2024, at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

CONFERENCE TOPICS

We welcome papers and workshops addressing any of the topics listed below or others that have broad interest for the capstone design community.

  • Expectations: project scoping, expected results (sponsor, faculty, and students), learning objectives, industry liaison efforts, differences across disciplines in multidisciplinary teams, required course deliverables

  • Industry Relationships: value achieved versus educational value to students, expectations versus cost of project, meeting industry requirements for new hires, engaging corporate sponsors

  • Intellectual Property: industry expectations, student roles, institutional policies, confidential information

  • Contemporary Themes: inclusion and impact of societal, environmental, and global issues; diversity, equity and inclusion in design

  • Student Issues: teamwork, expectations, professional communication skills, prerequisites to work on industry sponsored projects, matching skills to project

  • Assessment: formative and summative guidelines, team versus individual, project results versus student learning outcomes, grading across disciplines, industry versus faculty perceptions; meeting individual program standards with a multidisciplinary experience

  • Multidisciplinary Collaboration: intra- and inter-program collaboration regarding the formation and implementation of multidisciplinary teams including conflicts and barriers. 

PAPERS

Submissions are peer reviewed and all accepted papers are included in the conference proceedings. Instead of following the traditional presentation format, however, all accepted papers are featured in highly interactive poster sessions. The majority of the conference sessions are conducted as stimulating panel discussions, based on topics drawn in part from the pool of accepted papers. Associated authors may be invited to participate as panelists for these themed panel discussion.

Logistics regarding paper format and review are:

  • Papers are limited to four pages, including references.
  • Papers are to be formatted according to the paper guidelines.
  • All submitted papers are peer reviewed.
  • Authors submitting papers will be asked to participate in the review process.
  • Authors of accepted papers are encouraged to submit revisions based on reviewers' comments.
  • Authors of accepted papers will be invited to submit full-length manuscripts to a special issue of a journal following the conference.
  • Poster formatting guidelines will be provided to authors of accepted papers.

Submission: Papers must be submitted through this link: Conference Management Tool. The submission deadline for papers is January 16, 2024. 

WORKSHOPS

Workshops are conducted as 90-minute interactive sessions that foster audience participation. We encourage proposals for workshops of broad interest to the capstone design community.

Workshop proposals should not exceed two pages and should contain the information requested in the workshop template.

Submission: Workshops must be submitted through this link: Conference Management Tool. The submission deadline for workshops is January 16, 2024. 

PANEL SUGGESTIONS

Suggestions and ideas for panel sessions are welcomed and can be sent via email to capstoneconf@gmail.com.

STUDENT PARTICIPATION

We look forward to student participation in the poster sessions and on selected panels. More details about student involvement and nominating student participants will be announced in February 2024. On a competitive basis, we anticipate offsetting travel and registration costs for students from a wide array of institutions.

PROFESSIONAL PARTICIPATION

We expect to be able to offer some Travel Support Grants. The goal of these grants is to encourage attendees who would like to participate in CDC24 but have limited travel funds within their institutions. More information about this opportunity will be announced in February 2024.

OTHER INVOLVEMENT

We welcome your help to make this conference a rewarding and useful experience for the capstone design community. Please submit ideas and recommendations directly to the organizing committee at capstoneconf@gmail.com.

QUESTIONS

Please direct questions about papers, workshops, or other conference areas to the organizing committee at capstoneconf@gmail.com or check out the conference website at https://capstonedesigncommunity.org/