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Syllabus, IS 498 ATM Sections [All Semesters] Senior Capstone in Atmospheric Sciences

IAS Logo IS 498 - ATM Specialization
Undergraduate Research/Scholarship
"Senior Capstone in Atmospheric Sciences"
Institute of Atmospheric Sciences
South Dakota School of Mines
Rapid City, South Dakota

Who Where When

ATM Advisor:
Bill Capehart, MI 213, Open Door Office Hours, Ph: 394-1994, Email: <William.Capehart@sdsmt.edu>
Committee:
Research Advisor
Secondary Reader
Undergraduate/IS Program Representative
WWW:
http://capehart.sdsmt.edu/is-atm-498.html

Overview

Your capstone tops off your academic career at SDSMT. It is a final product of a comprehensive research project that you will design with the support of IAS, ATM and IS faculty and staff in which you will tackle new ground in atmospheric sciences.

Two things to be aware of up front.

  1. This is not a term paper. It is significantly longer and is more akin to the theses that are produced at the Graduate Level.
  2. This is not something you can do the night before it is due. This is a distillation of a semester-long project (and your work on this project will actually begin in IS 401 - well before your final semester).
And if it looks like either of the two above items, you will not graduate.
Senior capstone is a semester long research project culminating in a comprehensive, well-written, multi-chapter (or multi-sectioned, depending on overall form) paper.
A well-written capstone paper is your E-ticket to graduate school.
A well-written capstone paper can be presented at a national conference.
A very well-written capstone paper can be easily converted into a refereed journal article (which looks very good on your vita)
It will take time. Lots of it. (Since you register for 3 credit hours in this course, you should be expected to place 135 hours into this project).
It will demand hard work. Lots of it.
And you will need help.

That's our job.

Indeed, research like this is what we are doing when we are not in class!

Prerequisites and Registration

Senior Capstone requires a prerequisite of IS 401 (Writing & Research in Interdisciplinary Sciences). You will also need to fill out the IS 498 Project Contract.

Critical to forming a viable project topic and working committee (committee details below) is to work with the ATM faculty and staff beforehand. This should be done by the semester you take IS 498, preferably during IS 401, or between these two classes depending on your plan of study.

Both ATM and IS policy does not permit redundant research projects for concurent or previous courses. Scholarly work that is submitted to two or more registered courses can nullify all submissions unless otherwise explicitly specified by course policy. Though a senior capstone can be a continuation of previous coursework, it must be fully unique and stand alone. It cannot be an trivial expansion or duplication of any submitted material. Your research advisor will be able to help you discern any shades of grey in this area.

Registration for IS 498 follows the same procedure for signing up for an independent study. You should fill out the appropriate form listing your research advisor as the instructor of record.

Your Committee

Your committee should consist of three members. All should be selected with their approval before registration.  The ATM formula differs slightly from the IS program and parallels the MS committee framework.

Major Professor (Capstone Project Advisor)

The faculty member responsible for assisting the students in their projects. The student should arrange a weekly meeting time with which to work with the advisor. The advisor can be any staff member in IAS ranked with the rank of Research Scientist 3 or higher (this includes all faculty ranks).  This is not necessarily the academic advisor.

Secondary Reader

Responsible for providing supplemental research support and paper review for scientific, technical and writing content. The secondary reader can be an off-campus post but must be approved by ATM and IAS.

Undergraduate (IS) Representative

Responsible for overseeing the broader capstone review for rigor and procedure. The Undergraduate Representative is charged with insuring that the overall senior capstone experience follows proper guidelines and that the student is treated fairly. The Undergraduate Representative for IS theses should be pulled from the IS faculty.

Academic Advisor / IS-ATM Program Manager

Responsible for overseeing the entire process, and for assigning the grades for the class.  The student will sign up for IS 498 under the Academic Advisor. As the program manager, it is this member's task to relay and brief the student and committee regarding the lager IS program's policies regarding the capstone project system and to act as a liaison between the IS and ATM programs.  The Academic Advisor can also serve as the Major Professor or the Secondary Reader. 

Capstone Topics

The Institute of Atmospheric Sciences is research facility on the SDSMT Campus. The faculty have plenty of ideas for capstone topics for students. However, it is the student's responsibility to decide and focus on one topic.

We recommend that students visit with all of the faculty to discuss topic ideas. Faculty can also discuss available IAS resources (e.g., computation).

Sample Topics
Severe Weather
Case Studies
Air Pollution
Numerical Weather Prediction
Climate Modeling and Climate Studies
Biogeochemistry and Ecology studies
Hydrologic and Flooding Studies
Public Affairs in Meteorology

Project Components

Proposal and Registration

As part of the course registration process, students should have a topic selected and a proposal drafted. Unless there's a change of plans, this can be the IS 401 proposal with necessary revisions and refinements.

The proposal development process will also help identify which faculty members will be involved on the committee, and also help the committee predict what resources, if any should be released to the student.

We understand that some students may have a full semester or longer between the time they take IS 401 and IS 498. As a result, the literature search and any preliminary proposals developed in IS 401 may change with time. We will be happy to work with you in this area.

Here is one example of a proposal format that we use in one of our ATM courses. It is fashioned from the National Science Foundation and NASA formats. You may want to merge this "style" with that used in IS 401 (consult with the appropriate faculty as to the proper length and specific form).

Critical to this proposal should be a timeline or simple Gantt chart which will will lay out the tasks necessary to complete the project as well as projected milestones and progress benchmarks. This is your map by which you will complete the project. Be assured that you will probably need to change this as you proceed. Consult with your prospective capstone advisor as to the appropriate deadlines for a first draft and defense date and adjust your timeline accordingly. Typical guidelines for benchmarks are provided below.

The proposal document should comply with IS 401 guidelines and should layout your proposed research, plan of attack, your proposed deadlines.

Research and Weekly Meetings

Though there are no assigned class times for this course, you should schedule and keep regular weekly meetings with your capstone advisor. You should work closely with your advisor in developing your capstone and keep pace with (and if necessary, realign) your project time line towards a productive and successful conclusion to your capstone.

In addition to your weekly meetings, it is also a good idea to formally summarize your work every few weeks. Assess where you are in your work and if necessary, alter your timeline.

Capstone Paper

As a rule, the capstone paper, similar to a thesis, should be targeted towards your peers, defined here as senior- and junior-level meteorology students, and the IAS and ATM faculty and staff.

Your paper should be a minimum of 20-25 pages in length at minimum (not counting back matter such as references and appendices). We recommend that you follow the same format required by the Graduate School.

Likewise, we recommend using the citation and discipline-specific styles of the Am erican Meteorological Society.

Depending on the size of your project you may want to have it in multi-chapter form (like a graduate level thesis) or a mult-section form (closer to what you see in journal papers). Regardless of the look-and-feel, it should be sectioned clearly (looking through a few journal articles or smaller graduate theses in the library may give you a feel for what your project will look like). There should be one bibliography as part of the back-matter that covers all citations in the main body and appendices (if you have any).

As a general rule, your first draft should be ready for your capstone advisor and possibly your secondary reader by one-half month (at the latest) before your defense (which should be scheduled to occur at or before the week preceding final exams). Deadlines are shown in a section below. You will be given recommend modifications based on your committee's professional judgment.

It is best to adhere to a "final form" format of your capstone paper from the beginning. This means less formatting, desktop publishing and other "small stuff" (and none of it is small stuff) to do at the end.

Defense

When your capstone advisor clears your draft, it can be formally submitted to the full committee. They should have one week to read it. The defense must be scheduled no later than the last week before finals -- no defense will be permitted during finals week. The first half of the meeting will be open to the department. Here, you will present your project. As a rule, schedule about 20-30 minutes for this. As with your capstone paper, you will be talking to your faculty, cohort, colleagues and professional peers. Design your talk accordingly. The floor will be open for questions from the general audience. A good rule of thumb for the "open" part of the defense is about 20 minutes for the presentation, 10 minutes for the open questions from the general audience.

Next, the room will be cleared of all people but you and your committee, and the committee-level defense will be begin. This should take about 30 minutes. For an example of this process, rent the film Shallow Grave and watch the opening sequence. (The balance of the movie is a primer for extreme conflict resolution among roommates, and not particularly germane to this discussion, nor can your committee or IS program assist you in such matters.) You will be questioned on the details and implications of your project. It is often the rule that a student will have some changes to make. These changes should be completed by the close of finals week where your last paper draft and cleared by your committee. Here it is a good idea to sit with each committee member even if you have not done so already before the paper.

Your final draft will be kept in IAS/ATM and IS and should be submitted before finals week. If your work is exceptional and may contribute to the broader community, IAS/ATM and IS may recommend that you consider presenting at a regional or national conference, and we may be able to assist in that area.

Project Benchmarks

The following benchmarks should be on your timeline in your proposal.
  1. Proposal, Initial Time Line and Committee selection: Done before Registration and Conclusion of IS 401.
  2. Weekly Meetings with Advisor: Once every week.
  3. Revised Timelines and Formal Status Reports: At the end of every month during IS 498.  Provide these to all members of the committee and the program manager.
  4. Thesis Draft Revision Cycle.  Students and the Capstone should schedule a draft submission and revision sequence so that the committee receives a thesis ready draft no more than one week before the last week of classes. For ATM, the final defense draft should be released to the committee no later than one week before the defense.  We recommend that this process begins no more than three weeks before the thesis is scheduled to go to committee (i.e., four weeks before the defense).
  5. Defense Copy of Capstone Paper to All Committee Members: One Week Before Defense
  6. Capstone Defense:  No Later Than the Last Week of Classes (shoot for one week before Last Week of Classes)
  7. Final Capstone Paper Due: Last Day of the Semester (i.e., the last day of Exam Week).  This is a "drop- deadline."  This must be approved by the major professor.  No grade cannot be assigned with this document.  Not making this deadline without negotiation an extension via the Incomplete Grading guidelines will result in an "F" for the course and will impact your graduation time table.

Supplemental Materials



Contact: William Capehart

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http://sdmines.sdsmt.edu/ias/courses/is498-atm Last Modified: 11/10/2009

 
     

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