Building Real World Domain-Specific Social Network Websites as Capstone Projects

This paper describes our experience of using Content Management Software (CMS), specifically Joomla, to build a real world domain-specific social network site (SNS) as a capstone project for graduate information systems and computer science students. As Web 2.0 technologies become increasingly important in driving business application development, information systems programs will benefit from utilizing these leading edge technologies in realistic and exciting team projects. Two capstone teams built a SNS for a swimming team by configuring, extending and creating Joomla components in a two semester sequence. Appropriate social networking features were integrated with domain-specific application requirements to create an online community to support swimmers in achieving their goals. The prototype received very good reviews from the swimming coaches and the mentor. A software process based on a subset of Rational Unified Process (RUP), agile software development, and scrum was used. The paper discusses the relative merits and suitability of building a domain-specific SNS as a capstone project. It also presents the points of view and experiences of the project's industrial mentor and students. (Contains 2 figures.)