Dear Sponsor,

Welcome to the spring offering of our Capstone program!  Please read 
this note carefully, and feel free to ask me any questions. I am 
Murthy Narasimhan, instructor for the Capstone sections in which your 
project will be offered. I have more than 15 years experience in 
Software Development and am currently working at Nationwide in their 
IT department.

As of today your project has so far only been allocated to the class. 
Finalization of projects and their association to teams will take 
place the week of Jan 12, 2015. Teams should be contacting you 
directly starting January 15. ** Note: We expect that all projects 
will be selected, however, projects could still end up not being 
selected due to unexpected events - such as if students end up 
dropping courses (which they can do through the first week without 
penalty).

Next, here are some guidelines to sponsors for successful outcomes in 
the Capstone projects:

1.Please make yourselves available to your Capstone team for about 1-2 
hours per week. Initially this will be for requirements gathering, 
project scoping etc. Later it will be for evaluating their 
implementations and their progress

2.Please communicate with the students in a timely manner. They need 
you to be responsive in order to do well in this class.

3.If you are able to, please feel free to provide any technical or 
other mentorship to the teams. Students will be happy to learn from 
you as much as they learn from their peers and faculty.

4.There will be three presentations during the course of the project. 
Please plan to attend their kick-off, mid-term and final presentations 
and their end-of-term poster exhibit on April 28 (Reading Day).  All 
presentations will be during their class hours (Monday, Wednesday 5:30 
PM – 7:00 PM). The dates will be finalized after the first week of 
classes.

5.The Capstone faculty will ask you for brief evaluations twice during 
the term. Please provide these evaluations.

6.Please note that the primary outcome of the project is meant to be 
**student learning**. That said; please keep your standards and 
expectations high! One of the best learning outcomes for students is 
how to deliver to customer needs while dealing with scarce resources - 
time and expertise - by negotiating scope, and then committing to 
deliver. So, while you may empathize with the fact that students have 
other classes, examinations etc., do NOT go easy on then, and continue 
to demand that they live up to their commitments.

7.At the minimum, expect well-designed software, with a rationale for 
every design decision. If teams cannot provide a clear rationale for 
their decision, ask them to revisit their decision (with the help of 
the faculty and Teaching Assistants).

8.Again, at a minimum, maintain a high level of communication with the 
Capstone team, and insist that the students maintain a high level of 
communication with you. If this seems to be not happening, escalate 
this to me or Capstone faculty right away.

Please do not hesitate to communicate with me as needed, even if the 
project is going well, and especially if it is not. You can reach me 
at my email address as well my phone ( 614-677-1692).

Thank you and I look forward to another exciting Capstone season!

Regards,

Murthy  Narasimhan
CSE 5911: DL 0305 5:30 - 7:00
Phone: 614-677-1692