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HOW CAN STUDENTS ENSURE THAT THEIR CAPSTONE PROJECT IS RIGOROUS AND MEETS THE PROGRAM’S LEARNING OUTCOMES

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Speak to your capstone adviser and other faculty members who are familiar with the program’s expectations to get clear guidance on what constitutes a high-quality capstone project. Ask them to provide examples of previous student projects that were particularly strong and effectively demonstrated the intended learning outcomes. Reviewing examples of successful past capstones can help you understand the standards and expectations you need to meet.

Carefully examine the learning outcomes and competencies that are supposed to be demonstrated through the capstone. Analyze each outcome in depth to understand precisely what knowledge, skills or abilities need to be shown. Develop a detailed list of the evidence you will need to include in your final project/report/work to adequately address each learning outcome. Have your adviser or other faculty review your list to confirm you have correctly interpreted the program’s expectations.

As you formulate your research questions, project goals and objectives, think about how to most effectively design your work so that the process and final results allow you to gather evidence for each learning outcome. Choose a meaningful project topic and approach that will provide rich opportunities to develop and exhibit your mastery of the intended areas of learning rather than something superficial. Your capstone should leave no doubt that you have truly achieved each outcome through substantial work.

Establish a substantive timeline with ambitious but realistic benchmarks and milestones for completing all the required elements of an excellent capstone over the course of the project period. Build in opportunities for feedback and revisions along the way. Do not leave significant portions of work until the last minute as you need time for reflection and improvement. Meet regularly with your adviser to track your progress against the timeline.

Utilize best practices for rigorous research, analysis or design work as applicable to your chosen methodology. Learn how experts in your field approach similar projects and implement the same standards of quality scholarship. Use methodologies that allow for deep exploration, persuasive evidence and clear conclusions. Make sure to thoroughly document your process for transparency and reproducibility.

Go above and beyond minimum requirements where possible by considering additional forms of analysis, levels of depth or breadth to your work. For example, if designing a solution, prototype or test it to demonstrate practical usefulness. If researching a topic, consider additional perspectives or populations to strengthen arguments. These extra efforts will showcase the extensive effort required to truly master the intended learning outcomes.

Draw meaningful conclusions and thoughtful reflections based on the results of your work. Discuss how your findings inform your topic area and identify avenues for future work based on limitations or gaps in existing literature. Consider how your capstone experience specifically helped develop the program’s intended learning outcomes within you and ways you have grown as a result of taking on such an ambitious project.

Prepare a high-quality final report, paper or other output to communicate your process and findings. The presentation of your work should be on par with professional standards and leave a strong lasting impression of your skills and competence. A sloppy report could undermine even excellent underlying work. Ensure someone reviews your writing for clarity, organization, style and proper mechanics before submission.

In all of these areas, seek frequent formative assessment in the form of instructor and peer feedback to identify where additional effort or improvement is needed before submitting your final capstone. Demonstrating a commitment to utilizing guidance and continuing to refine your work until it meets very high expectations will set you apart. The capstone experience should clearly culminate in a rigorous body of work that provides convincing evidence of your mastery of the targeted learning outcomes through high-quality scholarship. Following these steps conscientiously should help ensure your capstone meets and exceeds the assessment standards of the program.

WHAT ARE SOME IMPORTANT SKILLS THAT STUDENTS CAN GAIN FROM COMPLETING A MACHINE LEARNING CAPSTONE PROJECT

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Students who undertake a machine learning capstone project have the opportunity to gain a wide variety of important technical, professional, and soft skills that will be highly valuable both in their academic and career trajectories. Machine learning is an interdisciplinary field that draws from computer science, statistics, mathematics, and other domains. A capstone project provides students hands-on experience applying machine learning concepts and algorithms to solve real-world problems.

One of the most significant skills students develop is the ability to independently plan and complete an end-to-end machine learning project. This involves skills such as defining objectives, scoping the problem, researching approaches, designing models and experiments, acquiring or collecting data, preparing and cleaning data, implementing and training models, evaluating results, and reporting findings. Learning how to take ownership of a project from start to finish teaches self-direction, time management, and the ability to overcome setbacks independently — skills critical for future academic work as well as most professional careers.

On the technical side, some important skills gained include experience with machine learning algorithms and techniques. Students apply algorithms such as regression, classification, clustering, deep learning, and more to solve practical problems. They gain experience with model building, tuning hyperparameters, debugging models, evaluating accuracy, and comparing approaches. Students also develop software skills like programming in languages like Python, version control with Git, and experiment tracking with platforms like Jupyter Notebooks or MLflow. Foundational skills in data cleaning, exploration, visualization and feature engineering are also greatly improved.

Oral and written communication skills are enhanced through the reporting required to describe their project objectives, methodology, results and conclusions to both technical and non-technical audiences. Students practice disseminating technical ML work clearly and accurately. Presentation experience builds self-assurance and the ability to discuss technical topics with non-experts. Written documents like project reports and blogs improve scientific writing structure and style.

Self-awareness of strengths, weaknesses, and learning style is enhanced through independent work and feedback. Students gain an understanding of their ability to take initiative, manage complexity, tolerate ambiguity, and incorporate feedback to improve. Real-world experience applying academic knowledge raises awareness of how to continuously expand technical competencies.

Teamwork skills may also be developed if the project incorporates a group component. Experience collaborating on shared goals, delegating responsibilities, navigating conflicts, establishing structure and accountability, and combining individual contributions into a cohesive whole strengthens ability to work as part of a team.

Beyond technical prowess, a capstone project showcases many desirable professional qualifications that employers seek, like problem-solving aptitude, work ethic, accountability, versatility and adaptability to new challenges. Completing an independent, multi-stage project provides tangible evidence of persistence, resourcefulness and motivation to see complex, open-ended tasks through to completion—qualities essential for long-term career growth.

The research, experimentation, reporting and reflection involved in a machine learning capstone project provides a true immersion into evidence-based, iterative development practices that closely mimic real-world data science work. The opportunity to gain these wide-ranging practical and professional skills sets students up enormously well for both continued academic success and a rapid start in industry. A well-executed capstone demonstrates to potential employers an applicant’s initiative and capability to contribute immediately as a junior practitioner.

Conducting a machine learning capstone project allows students to gain invaluable experience in key technical skills like machine learning algorithms and software, as well as softer skills in project management, communication, self-awareness and collaboration that will support long-term learning and career development. The hands-on, independent nature of a capstone mimics real working conditions and provides a solid foundation and proof of competency for whatever a student’s next steps may be.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE CHALLENGES THAT TRADITIONAL MEDIA CHANNELS HAVE FACED DUE TO DIGITAL MEDIA

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Traditional media channels such as newspapers, television, radio, and print magazines have faced significant disruption and challenges with the emergence and rise of digital media platforms. Some of the major challenges include:

Declining Advertising Revenue: Advertising has traditionally been the primary source of revenue for most traditional media outlets. With more people accessing news and consuming content online, advertising dollars have steadily shifted towards digital platforms. Giants like Google and Facebook now dominate the online advertising market, capturing over 50% of all new digital ad spending. This has led to steep declines in advertising revenue for newspapers, television channels, and other traditional outlets.

For example, newspaper advertising revenue in the US peaked at $49 billion in 2000 but fell to just $16 billion in 2017. Print magazines have seen even sharper drops, losing around 50% of their revenue to digital competitors over the past decade. This loss of ad money has put severe financial pressure on traditional media business models.

Shift in Consumer Habits: Younger audiences now practically live online, relying on various digital platforms for consuming content, news and staying connected. Traditionally, people would watch scheduled television programs, listen to the radio during commute, or read newspapers daily. Digital media has allowed on-demand access to content anywhere, anytime via mobile devices.

This has changed fundamental consumer habits and eroded the importance of traditional fixed schedules and formats. TV viewership of younger demographics is declining while time spent on various online streaming services is rising exponentially. Print newspaper circulation figures have fallen drastically almost everywhere as people get their news online.

Challenges of Platform Disruption: Digital technologies have enabled entirely new kinds of media platforms like social networks, online video sites, blogs, messaging apps etc. that were never imagined before. Some of these like Facebook and YouTube have become massively popular, disrupting traditional media business models.

Traditional players have found it difficult to establish a strong presence on these new digital platforms or to leverage emerging technologies for content distribution and monetization. It is also challenging for them to replicate their fixed costs across different online formats and platforms. This platform disruption combined with the migration of audiences online, has eroded the competitive advantages of scale previously enjoyed by traditional media organizations.

Rising Content Costs: To survive in the digital age, traditional outlets have invested heavily in building sophisticated digital products, developing new skills like data analytics and improving their websites and apps. This has meant higher infrastructure and operational costs at a time when advertising revenues are declining sharply.

Producing high-quality on-demand digital video and audio content requires huge investments that were not needed earlier for linear broadcast. Traditional media companies also have to pay substantial fees to the dominant online platforms to access audiences and run advertising campaigns. All these factors have increased fixed operating costs exponentially for them.

Loss of Trust and Relevance: Many newer digital platforms are perceived as more democratic, participatory and transparent compared to the traditional gatekeeping model of mainstream media. The ability to rapidly share and spread news online has given rise to challenges around fake news, propaganda and deliberate misinformation.

This has shaken long-held perceptions of credibility, independence and trust associated with established newspapers, TV channels and magazines. Younger audiences, in particular, are turning more to social media and alternative online sources. Remaining relevant to changing audience interests and lifestyles online while maintaining high editorial standards is a constant struggle for traditional media companies.

Traditional media channels are facing an unprecedented challenge in the form of digital disruption. The migration of audiences online combined with the loss of advertising revenues to new platforms, changing consumer habits, higher operating costs, difficulties in leveraging emerging technologies and struggles around relevance and trust – have all significantly impacted the business models of newspapers, radio, television and magazines. Adapting to this digital transformation with innovative strategies remains a crucial challenge that these incumbents must overcome to survive and stay relevant in the future.

WHAT ARE SOME EXAMPLES OF ANTIBIOTIC STEWARDSHIP PROGRAMS THAT HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL IN REDUCING RESISTANCE SELECTION PRESSURES

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Some noteworthy antibiotic stewardship programs that have successfully reduced antibiotic resistance include the following:

The Duke Antimicrobial Stewardship Outreach Network (DASON) implemented collaborative antimicrobial stewardship programs across 55 North Carolina nursing homes between 2012-2017. Through educational outreach, reporting of antimicrobial use and resistance data, and recommendations for treatment guidelines, DASON was able to significantly reduce broad-spectrum antibiotic use by 32% and total antibiotic days of therapy by 19% across participating facilities. Critically, they also observed reductions in key resistance genes and multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) colonizing nursing home residents. This demonstrated how stewardship interventions can help curb resistance selection pressures even in vulnerable long-term care settings.

At Vanderbilt University Hospital, a multifaceted antimicrobial stewardship program was launched in 2010 focused on prospective audit and feedback, formulary restriction and preauthorization, clinical guidelines, and education. Through these interventions,broad-spectrum antibiotic use declined by 36%, total antibiotic use fell by 27%, and hospital-onset Clostridium difficile infections decreased by 56%. Overall hospital mortality also improved. Genome sequencing analysis of C. difficile isolates revealed an 8.4% annual decline in fluoroquinolone-resistant strains following program implementation, directly tying the resistance reduction to decreased selection pressure from stewardship-driven decreases in fluoroquinolone prescribing.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston initiated a successful antimicrobial stewardship program in 2006 focused on prospective audit and feedback, clinical guidelines, formulary restriction, and education. Over the subsequent decade, they achieved 25-40% reductions in use of broad-spectrum antibiotics, a 40% reduction in total antibiotic days of therapy, and significant declines in hospital-onset C. difficile,vancomycin-resistant enterococci, and multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacilli infections. Whole genome sequencing analysis of Enterobacteriaceae isolates found reduced acquisition and transmission of antibiotic resistance genes as well as stabilizing or declining resistance trends for many resistance phenotypes. The program was directly attributed with helping to curb rising resistance rates.

A multinational point-prevalence study of 233 ICUs across 75 countries before and after implementing antibiotic stewardship found a 15% reduction in antibiotic use along with reductions in antibiotic resistance, without negatively impacting clinical outcomes. Extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) production in E. coli isolates fell from 21% to 18% of isolates, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremias decreased from 21 to 17 per 1,000 patient-days after stewardship implementation. This study demonstrated the global potential for antimicrobial stewardship to curb rising resistance.

In the Netherlands, strict guidelines and national quality indicators for judicious antibiotic prescribing, particularly of fluoroquinolones and third-generation cephalosporins, led to substantial reductions in overall antibiotic use and use of highest-priority critically important antibiotics between 2000-2015. Genome sequencing found significant concurrent declines in quinolone resistance determinants and ESBL genes matching the decreases in selecting antibiotic pressure. The Netherlands programs are considered a model of success for implementing resistance-reducing antibiotic stewardship on a national scale.

These successful antibiotic stewardship programs highlight that through coordinated multi-pronged efforts of guideline development, education, and audit-based feedback on prescribing appropriateness and compliance, significant and sustained reductions in broad-spectrum antibiotic use, total antibiotic exposure, and key antibiotic-resistant infections can be achieved. Critically, genomic evidence from several programs directly links the resulting decreases in antibiotic selection pressure to stabilization or reductions in antibiotic resistance gene acquisition and transmission. Such programs demonstrate antibiotic stewardship’s vital role in helping curb the growing global public health crisis of antibiotic resistance.

WHAT ARE SOME IMPORTANT SKILLS THAT IT STUDENTS CAN DEMONSTRATE THROUGH A CAPSTONE PROJECT?

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Capstone projects provide students the opportunity to demonstrate a wide variety of important skills that will serve them well both in their continuing education and future careers. Through undertaking a substantial project that requires independent work and the synthesis of knowledge gained throughout their course of study, students are able to show their comprehension, critical thinking abilities, research prowess, and more.

Some of the key skills that capstone projects allow students to exhibit include: research skills, time management, collaboration, written and oral communication, problem solving, and technical proficiency. Let’s explore each of these in more detail:

Research Skills: Capstone projects necessitate independent research on the part of the student in order to define the project scope, gather background information on the topic, determine an approach or methodology, and collect any data needed. Students must effectively search various databases and resources to source high-quality, credible sources. They also need to synthesize findings from multiple sources and identify gaps requiring original research. The depth and breadth of research involved demonstrates a student’s ability to explore a topic thoroughly.

Time Management: Capstone work is a long-term endeavor taking months to complete, requiring students to plan backwards and allocate their time judiciously. They must break the project down into discrete tasks, set interim deadlines, anticipate challenges, and adjust schedules as needed. Juggling the demands of classwork, extracurriculars, employment and their personal lives while driving the capstone forward on schedule reflects strong time management and organizational proficiency.

Collaboration: Many capstones involve collaborating with other students, faculty members, or external advisors/experts. This necessitates the ability to divide responsibilities fairly, maintain open communication, integrate different perspectives, compromise when needed, and produce a cohesive final product on which all collaborated. It shows interpersonal and teamwork abilities that are vital for future academics and the workplace.

Communication Skills: To demonstrate their mastery of the material, students need to clearly articulate the purpose, methodology, findings and conclusions of their capstone through a final written report, poster or other presentation. The format may depend on their field of study. Regardless, strong written communication and public speaking talent is displayed through capstone deliverables. Students must be able to explain complex concepts in an organized, cohesive and engaging manner suitable to the intended audience, whether academic or professional.

Problem Solving: A capstone provides an authentic scenario for students to exercise higher-order thinking in analyzing a problem, testing hypotheses, addressing challenges or setbacks encountered, and devising and implementing innovative solutions. They get hands-on practice in critical evaluation, synthesis of alternative perspectives, creative idea generation, evidence-based decision making and overcoming obstacles. This reflects an ability to navigate open-ended, complex problems and issues as experienced professionals do.

Technical Proficiency: For STEM fields especially, the capstone may involve an applied research project utilizing advanced technical skills and specialized equipment. Example deliverables could include computer programs, engineering designs and prototypes, scientific experiments, statistical analyses, etc. Producing such substantial technical work capstones allows students to demonstrate knowledge of research methods and mastery of tools in their respective domains, foreshadowing their potential as scientist, engineers or technicians after graduation.

Through independent, long-term capstone endeavors tied to their field of study, students get to take their classroom learning to the next level. They practice self-directed project execution drawing from research, time management, teamwork, communication and higher-order thinking abilities. Consequently, capstones provide a powerful medium for students to showcase tangible skills which support their continued academic achievement as well as professional preparation and future career success across many potential industries and roles. Completing a quality capstone project serves as validation of a student’s competence and potential as they transition from undergraduate study.