Integrated research components: a practical and effective alternative to senior projects

Many computer science programs, especially those in liberal arts colleges, include some form of senior project in their curriculum. This paper describes a practical alternative to the senior project that retains most of the advantages and eliminates some of the disadvantages, especially for small institutions, that we have discovered. In addition to describing the modifications that we have made to the traditional senior project concept and their advantages, both for faculty and for students, we will present results of our experiences in using this model over the last five years.