Aligning student and educator capstone project preferences algorithmically

This paper reviews recent attempts by researchers at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) to increase the level of student engagement in a final year capstone project by allowing for a greater level of autonomy in project selection and assignment. The paper introduces the context, followed by a justification from current literature, an introduction to the approach and finally a summary of the outcomes obtained by the project. In this study an authentic learning approach was followed which allowed students to propose and tender for capstone projects in a four-year engineering programme, and following a period of tender also give active input into the selection of tenders based on their personal knowledge and experience. From this process, a preference list was obtained from both students and faculty of their opinions of the best way assignments could be allocated followed by applying the Gale-Shapley algorithm to select the optimal assignment of projects to students. It is hoped that this study will inspire other educators in similar situations to consider handing over some measure of control to students during their undergraduate studies in engineering to increase the level of responsibility and thoughtful reflection experienced by students before they enter the profession.