Function point analysis in computer science capstone projects

Capstone projects at the Computer Science Department at the University of Texas at El Paso allow students to demonstrate their knowledge of software engineering. During the capstone project, students work on a project that simulates industry; students have a client and a supervising team. Before a project is implemented, professors must assess the project to ensure consistency with previous projects and a significant experience for the students. Currently, a project is assessed primarily on past experiences. In industry, agreeing to completing and delivering a project without assessing the scope and estimating the project cost is neither acceptable nor profitable. Similarly in academia cost estimation beneficial, and one approach is to apply cost estimation techniques. Function Point Analysis (FPA) was applied to eight past capstone projects in computer science at UTEP. The capstone projects were conducted over the past 10 years. The research demonstrated that by applying a standard cost estimation approach, capstone projects can be assessed in an algorithmic way instead of relying solely on cost estimating experience. An accurate cost estimate of a capstone project leads to a valuable learning experience for the software engineering students