Chapter 35 — Capstone proposal and ethical review | Bachelor's Incident response and cyber resilience

Open, free learning for anyone who wants to protect people and technology. No account is required to read this text or its worked answers.

Lesson map

Lesson 35 published. Map, example, EX103.

flowchart TD
  N0["Learning outcomes and connection"]
  N1["35.1 What a bachelor's capstone is"]
  N2["35.2 Question and objectives"]
  N3["35.3 Data plan"]
  N4["35.4 Authorization and ethics"]
  N5["35.5 Success criteria and rubric"]
  N6["Chapter synthesis"]
  N0 --> N1 --> N2 --> N3 --> N4 --> N5 --> N6
  N6 --> EX["Worked example"]
  EX --> Q["Exercise EX103"]

Logical drawing

flowchart LR
  N0["Learning outcomes and connection"]
  N1["35.1 What a bachelor's capstone is"]
  N2["35.2 Question and objectives"]
  N3["35.3 Data plan"]
  N4["35.4 Authorization and ethics"]
  N5["35.5 Success criteria and rubric"]
  N6["Chapter synthesis"]
  N0 --> N1 --> N2 --> N3 --> N4 --> N5 --> N6 --> Q["EX103"]

[Learning outcomes and connection]
    |
    v
[35.1 What a bachelor's capstone is]
    |
    v
[35.2 Question and objectives]
    |
    v
[35.3 Data plan]
    |
    v
[35.4 Authorization and ethics]
    |
    v
[35.5 Success criteria and rubric]
    |
    v
[Chapter synthesis]
    |
    v
[Worked example] --> [Exercise EX103]

Learning outcomes and connection

You will be able to (1) write a capstone question and objectives that can be achieved in one semester; (2) design a data plan that uses only synthetic or authorized data; (3) complete an authorization and ethics checklist; and (4) define an assessment rubric and measurable success criteria. The capstone runs through Chapters 35–40: proposal, field practice, critique, implementation, evaluation and thesis. It uses the methods of Chapters 18, 33 and 34.

35.1 What a bachelor's capstone is

A bachelor's capstone demonstrates that you can apply the discipline's foundations to a bounded problem, make defensible judgements, and report honestly. It is not an original research contribution (doctoral level) nor a full engineered system (engineering level). A good capstone in this course improves one part of an incident workflow and shows, with evidence, whether the improvement worked under stated conditions.

The intake-form proposal in this chapter fits that scale: one part of the workflow, a measurable problem, a simulation with synthetic incidents and volunteers, and criteria set in advance. It would not claim that the form improves response across healthcare, only whether it worked under the stated conditions.

35.2 Question and objectives

The question must be answerable in the time available with the data you can legitimately obtain. Objectives are concrete deliverables: "a configured intake workflow", "a test suite of 12 synthetic cases", "an evaluation report". Each objective links to a success criterion.

In the intake proposal, each objective has a matching deliverable: the form and routing rules, a set of synthetic scenarios with known correct routing, a balanced simulation and an evaluation. If a planned element changes during the work, for instance the number of scenarios actually run, the thesis must say so and explain why, because a reader will compare the proposal with what was done.

35.3 Data plan

State the data sources (synthetic cases you build, public datasets with licences, organizational data only with written authorization), storage and access, retention and deletion at project end. Default to synthetic data: it removes most ethical risk and makes your work reproducible.

For the intake capstone, the data are synthetic scenarios, consent forms and pseudonymous volunteer IDs, deleted after grading. No real incident reports from any clinic are used. Write where the files are stored, who can read them and who deletes them, so the plan can be checked at the end.

35.4 Authorization and ethics

If any real organization or person is involved — even as a stakeholder interviewee or tabletop participant — you need permission from the organization, informed consent from participants and, if your institution requires it, ethics approval. Never test or scan real systems without written authorization from their owner.

The intake proposal involves classmates as volunteer reporters, so they give informed consent, can withdraw, and face no grading consequence for taking part. No real organization's systems are touched, and the institutional ethics check follows course rules. Record these steps before recruitment begins.

35.5 Success criteria and rubric

Success criteria are measurable thresholds agreed before implementation: "all 12 test cases produce a complete intake record with no manual re-entry", "median intake time under 6 minutes in the tabletop". The rubric describes how the work will be graded: question and method, implementation quality, evidence and evaluation, ethics and documentation, communication.

For the intake proposal, the criteria are completeness of at least 90 per cent with the form, routing accuracy of at least 90 per cent, and reporter time no more than two minutes longer than email. Because they are fixed now, the evaluation can report honestly if they are not met, as later happens in the capstone evaluation.

35.6 Worked example (synthetic): improving intake

Fictional proposal. Problem: at the fictional Harbourline, 35% of incident reports reach the SOC without the affected system or a contact, causing delays (from an internal audit — fictional). Question: "Does a structured intake form with required fields and routing rules reduce incomplete reports and time to first triage, compared with free-text email reports, in a simulation with 12 synthetic incidents and 8 volunteer reporters?"

Objectives: O1 design the form and routing rules; O2 build 12 synthetic incident scenarios with known correct routing; O3 run a within-subjects simulation (each volunteer reports 6 incidents by email and 6 by form, order balanced); O4 evaluate completeness, routing accuracy and time.

Data plan: synthetic scenarios only; volunteers are classmates; no personal data beyond consent forms and pseudonymous IDs; data deleted after grading.

Ethics checklist: consent with withdrawal right; no grading consequence for volunteers; no real organization's systems; institutional ethics check per course rules.

Success criteria: completeness ≥ 90% with the form vs baseline; routing accuracy ≥ 90%; reporter time not more than 2 minutes longer than email.

35.7 Common errors and limits

Questions too large for the time.
Plans that depend on access to real organizational data not yet authorized.
Success criteria set after results.
Treating classmates' simulation behaviour as representative of stressed clinical staff; say so in limitations.
Planning more scenarios or volunteers than the semester allows, then quietly running fewer; any change between proposal and run must be reported with its reason.
Designing the synthetic scenarios and scoring them without a second person checking that the reference routing is correct.
Writing success criteria so loose that any result meets them, which makes the evaluation uninformative.

Exercises — chapter 35

Attempt each exercise before opening the worked results. Every case, organization, person, address and number in an exercise is synthetic unless a cited public source is named.

EX103 — Scope down. Inputs: "Improve incident response at hospitals." Steps: reduce to a capstone question with objectives and success criteria. Rubric: 3 = bounded, synthetic or authorized data, measurable criteria; 2 = bounded but unmeasurable; 1 = still broad; 0 = none.

EX104 — Ethics checklist. Steps: write a ten-item ethics and authorization checklist for capstones in this course. Rubric: 3 = covers consent, withdrawal, data minimization, synthetic default, authorization for systems, storage and deletion, conflicts, incidental findings, institutional review, publication; 2 = six items; 1 = generic; 0 = none.

EX105 — Rubric. Steps: write a five-criterion rubric with four performance levels for the §35.6 capstone. Rubric: 3 = criteria with level descriptors that distinguish quality; 2 = criteria without descriptors; 1 = vague; 0 = none.

Chapter synthesis

A capstone proposal fixes a bounded question, objectives tied to measurable criteria, a synthetic-by-default data plan, authorization and ethics safeguards, and a rubric — all before any implementation begins.