SDP Requirements
CS Senior Project Requirements
CS students are required to enroll in the Senior Project (SP) during their final year of study. To be eligible for SP registration, students must meet the following criteria by the end of the semester preceding SP1:
- Completion of at least 84 CH, AND
- A minimum GPA of 2.0 (Note: Students with a GPA slightly below 2.0 (but above 1.8) may request an exception through their academic advisor, provided they have a viable plan to raise their GPA to 2.0 or higher during the final year), AND
- Successful completion of CMPS 310 Software Engineering AND either CMPS 350 Web Development Fundamentals OR CMPS 405 Operating Systems.
Important Notes:
- Starting Fall 2025, SP2 students are required to complete an online Exit Exam, accounting for 10% of the SP2 grade.
- SP1 and SP2 are offered in both Fall and Spring semesters.
CE Senior Design Project Requirements
CE students are required to enroll in the Senior Design Project (SDP) during their final year of study. To be eligible for SDP registration, students must meet the following criteria by the end of the semester preceding SDP1:
- Completion of at least 92 CH, AND
- A minimum GPA of 2.0 (Note: Students with a GPA slightly below 2.0 (but above 1.8) may request an exception through their academic advisor, provided they have a viable plan to raise their GPA to 2.0 or higher during the final year), AND
- Successful completion of CMPE 370 Computer Engineering Practicum (could be taken concurrently with SDP 1) AND CMPS 251 Object-Oriented Programming AND either CMPE 355 Data Communication and Computer Networks I OR CMPE 363 Computer Architecture and Organization II OR CMPE 364 Microprocessor-Based Design.
Important Notes:
- Starting Fall 2025, SDP2 students are required to complete an online Exit Exam, accounting for 10% of the SDP2 grade.
- SDP1 and SDP2 are offered in both Fall and Spring semesters.
- Starting Spring 2026, CMPE 370 Computer Engineering Practicum will be offered in both Fall and Spring semesters.
- Starting Fall 2026, CMPS 303 Data Structures will replace CMPS 251 as a prerequisite for SDP1 registration.
CSE SDP Policies
- SDP I and SDP II are offered in every semester (Fall and Spring).
- If some members of a group failed SDP I, the remaining members who passed SDP I (a minimum of two members) can continue SDP II on the same project with proportional scaling. However, if only one member from the group passed SDP I, he/she will likely need to join another group to continue SDP II.
- A group whose All members failed SDP II can repeat it during the next semester, with the same group, the same project, and, if available, the same supervisor.
- If at least one of the group members passed SDP II, the remaining members who failed SDP II must repeat both SDP I and SDP II with a new group and a new project.
- The supervisor and/or the examiner have the right to assign a lower grade, including a grade of 0, to a group member in cases where it is evident that the member has made significantly limited or no contribution to the work.
*SDP I refers to the course ‘Senior Project I – CMPS 493’ for CS major, and ‘Design Project I – CMPE 498’ for CE major. While, SDP II refers to the courses ‘Senior Project II – CMPS 499’ for CS major, and ‘Design Project II – CMPE 499’ for CE major.
Senior/Design Project Registration Guidelines
Preregistration is a process to facilitate the formation of SDP groups prior to official registration in SDP Groups on the Banner system.
Each SDP Group is of FOUR students and ONE supervisor therefore, the capacity of the group is FIVE members in total.
The Preregistration Process
The following ordered steps summarize this process:
- CSE SDP committee initiate this process after the end of add/drop due date of each semester and lasts for 30
- CSE SDP committee add to CSE Senior/Design Project I community on Blackboard supervisors and students who initially satisfy the published SDP requirements (based on students’ current semester registration). This community can be access on Blackboard under My Organizations. The community usually has a naming following the formats CSE Senior/Design Project I semester year, for example, CSE Senior/Design Project I Fall 2024 or CSE Senior/Design Project I Spring 2025.
- Students planning to register for SDP I are expected to take the initiative of teaming up in order to form groups with their peers, and initiate ideas for their SDP. A student must be sure to register in the correct group, there are groups for CS male, CE male, CS female, CE female, mixed CE-CS male, and mixed CE-CS female groups.
- Members of a group, altogether, click the CSE Senior/Design Project I link on Blackboard and register in one of the available pre-created groups.
- The group starts communicating with the available supervisors to discuss the possibility of supervision.
- Supervisor adds him/herself to a group as a supervisor (maximum of two groups per supervisor).
- The process lasts for one month and ends by having all SDP groups being formed.
- At the end of this process,
- Members registered in a group are committed to the group.
- A student who did not join a group loses the opportunity of taking SDP in the next semester and is removed from this community.
- A group without a supervisor will be assigned a supervisor.
- Broken groups – groups having less than four students – are regrouped by the SDP committee. No entertaining of any special requests by students in these groups. Regrouping process is up to the CSE department and SDP committee.
- CSE department offers SDP I sections on the Banner system. CSE initiate the official registration process that requires department approval to register in these sections. Consequently, members of an SDP group will receive the SDP I section’s CRN corresponding to their group to register for it on the Banner system.
- When the grades of the current semester are finalized and published, CSE SDP committee will have the final eligibility check on students who have registered in the SDP groups.
- Students who are not eligible are removed from both the SDP I section on the Banner system and the SDP community on Blackboard.
- Broken groups, groups having less than four students, are regrouped by the SDP committee. No entertaining of any special requests by students in these groups. Regrouping process is up to the CSE department and SDP committee.
The Idea of the SDP
Members of a group need to identify an idea for their project. The idea should be tackling a complex Computing/Engineering problem. The significance of the problem and its expected solution must be clearly stated, justified, and supported by evidences. The idea should present the impacts of the problem and the expected impacts of providing a solution for it on individuals, groups, community, or the globe as well as health, economy, environment, …etc.
Complex engineering problems include one or more of the following characteristics: involving wide-ranging or conflicting technical issues, having no obvious solution, addressing problems not encompassed by current standards and codes, involving diverse groups of stakeholders, including many component parts or sub-problems, involving multiple disciplines, or having significant consequences in a range of contexts.
Complex computing problems include one or more of the following characteristics: involving wide-ranging or conflicting technical issues and tradeoffs, having no obvious solution, involving diverse groups of stakeholders, including many component parts or sub-problems, involving multiple disciplines, or having significant consequences in a range of contexts.
Identifying An Idea for The SDP
Have brainstorming sessions with your group members to discuss multiple ideas. An idea is inspired by obstacles, problems, issues, and limitations experienced or observed. It could be an innovative idea that you need to double-check, or a dream to bring to reality. You could be the source of the idea or an external source. If have none of that, start searching for ideas. Ask your family members, relatives, friends, classmates, and people whom you know. Ask them if they need an ITC (CS-CE) solution to a problem that they are facing or if they know someone who needs it. Always target government and private sectors first. Industrial companies, institutions, organizations …etc. At the end of the day, you need a real client for your project and it is your responsibility to find such a client.
SDP I Deliverable Items
Report, Presentation, Logbook, Proof-Of-Concept (PoC), PoC video, Contribution, and Peer-Review.
Templates of the deliverable items and other support materials can be found on SDP Community on Blackboard.
SDP I Assessment Process
- Before the start of the last three teaching weeks of the semester, the SDP groups submit drafts of the following items to their supervisor for review and feedback: Report, Presentation, and Logbook.
- Before the start of last two teaching weeks of the semester, supervisors communicate their review and feedback on the following drafts with their SDP groups: Report, Presentation, and Logbook.
- Before the start of last teaching weeks of the semester, the SDP groups submit the following items to SDP community on Blackboard for examination: Report, Presentation, Logbook, Proof-Of-Concept (PoC), PoC video, Contribution, and Peer-Review.
- SDP presentations and demonstrations are scheduled in the last teaching week of the semester.
Grading rubrics can be found on SDP Community on Blackboard.
SDP II Deliverable Items
Report, Presentation, Poster, Pitching video, full Demo video, Product, Logbook, Contribution, and Peer-Review.
Templates of the deliverable items and other support materials can be found on SDP Community on Blackboard.
SDP II Assessment Process
- Before the start of the last three teaching weeks of the semester, the SDP groups submit drafts of the following items to their supervisor for review and feedback: Report, Presentation, Poster, Pitching video, full Demo video, Product, and Logbook.
- Before the start of last two teaching weeks of the semester, supervisors communicate their review and feedback on the following drafts with their SDP groups: Report, Presentation, Poster, Pitching video, full Demo video, Product, and Logbook.
- Before the start of last teaching week of the semester, the SDP groups submit the following items to SDP community on Blackboard for examination: Report, Presentation, Pitching video, full Demo video, Product, Logbook, Contribution, and Peer-Review.
- SDP presentations, demonstrations, and SDP Day event are scheduled in the last teaching week of the semester.
Grading rubrics can be found on SDP Community on Blackboard.
SDP Day
The SDP Day event is scheduled during the last teaching week of the SDP II semester. Invited professionals from the industry and other government, public, and private sectors attend this open showcase event in addition to QU community and SDP groups’ families. Each SDP group is allocated a private space to showcase their project by displaying the poster, pitching video, demo video, and any additional marketing material. The SDP groups also deliver brief presentation (2-3 min) and live demo of their final product. During this event, CSE adopts an evaluation process involving invited external professional judges to select the best projects. The event close by announcing best projects and nominating these projects to compete at CENG inter-departments SDP competition at the college of Engineering level.
Evaluation rubrics can be found on SDP Community on Blackboard.
Materials of Past SDP Projects
You can access the materials of past SDP projects on these links: