CS 4971 - Fall 2025

Capstone Practicum II

Capstone Practicum II serves as one of the three options for completing the CS Capstone and SEAS Senior Thesis requirement for students graduating in Fall 2025 or Spring 2026. For more information about the capstone, please go to https://uvacsadvising.org/bscs.html#capstone-information.

CS 4970 will NOT be a prerequisite for this class in Fall or Spring. It will be waived. Prerequisites are: 1) BSCS Major; 2) Graduating in AY ‘25-‘26; 3) C- or better in CS 3240. Indicate your major, graduation semester, and semester you completed CS 3240 in your SIS enrollment permission request.

Overview

From Fall 2013 through Spring 2020, the Computer Science department offered a two-course sequence for completing the CS Capstone and SEAS Senior Thesis requirement - CS 4970: Capstone Practicum I and CS 4971: Capstone Practicum II. Originally created by Prof. Aaron Bloomfield, the course was an opportunity for students to build projects for non-profits around Charlottesville over the full year. Overall, the courses were well-liked and students enjoyed building software for real customers.

However, in Spring 2020… well… we all know what happened :-(. After that, not only was it impossible to find any non-profits to work with, the current instructor schedule for Fall 2020 (Prof. Bloomfield had handed the course off to someone else a few years before) left suddenly that summer for another position. So the department had to figure out something in roughly a month ahead of the Fall 2020 semester that would work during… well… “you know what.”

This is how CS 4991: Capstone Technical Report came to be. We needed both three credits for students (hence, taking a 6th CS elective) and a way to track a technical report. While this system has been working reasonably well and we have a wonderful instructor teaching it (Prof. Vrugtman), it’s gotten a bit too big.

Rebooting the Practicum

So, for AY 2025-2026, we are rebooting CS 4971 and trying the independent capstone project system again, with a few changes:

  • The course will run over one semester, not two as it was before with CS 4970 and CS 4971.
  • The course will not be strictly limited to service learning / building apps for non-profits. This can be an option, but is not required.
  • The projects will be up to the student teams. The main guiding principle is that the team shows that what they are building “fulfills a need.”
  • The platform is up to you. Web, mobile, game… whatever makes sense for your project. The technology is up to you too! (The danger in this is NO support will be offered for many platforms / technologies…)
  • Teams will be three to four students. Students are highly encouraged to enroll for the class as a team as you will be able to choose your teammates. Solo students can enroll, but you will be placed on a team with other solo students.
  • Project management and deliverables will closely mirror what is done in CS 3240, including requirements elicitation, a requirements document, a design document, sprint reports, etc. Basically, picture the CS 3240 project, but with most of the guardrails taken off.
  • Student teams will jointly co-author the SEAS Technical Report, due at the end of the semester. Papers will follow standard ACM conference formatting and guidelines.

Logistics

  • Will be offered both F25 and S26 with roughly 140 seats each semester.
  • Will ONLY use CS 4971 as the course number (as this is programmed in SIS to satisfy the capstone requirement).
  • Prereqs are 0) must be a BSCS major; 1) will graduate in F25 or S26; 2) C- or better in CS 3240. CS 4970 will be waived (hence the permission of instructor required to enroll).
  • Most weeks you will only meet once. Many weeks we will alternate which teams come to which day.
  • Lecture will be 1) project status updates (with presentations to the class) or 2) industry guest speakers.
  • Attendance will be required and taken.

Lecture Sessions

Mondays and Wednesdays @ 2:00-3:15 PM in MEC 205

Staff Information

Instructor: Prof. Mark Sherriff
Office: Rice 400
Office Hours: Spring 2025: Wednesdays 9:00-10:30 AM & Thursdays 12:30-2:00 PM
Email: sherriff@virginia.edu
Website: http://marksherriff.com