Businesses can be involved in capstone projects. The Marlboro College Graduate School, for example, encourages businesses to sponsor capstone projects. The businesses benefit by having challenges met or problems solved. Students benefit by gaining real-world experience. Completing a capstone project takes at least 250 hours. Students deliver an initial presentation and a defense presentation. Depending on the nature of the project, a student may also deliver some tangible items as the project progresses, such as a high-level plan for the redesign of a website, a detailed plan, and then the "live," redesigned website.
Institutions of higher learning can also benefit the community through their students' capstone projects. For example, the Center for Community Design Research, a program of the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, partners with community officials and organizations to address planning and design issues. In the next-to-last semester of school, students prepare detailed proposals for their capstone projects. During the last semester, they work on and complete the projects. Designing a master landscaping plan for the campus of a museum is one example of a capstone project.
Since journalism takes many forms, capstone projects for journalism students can be delivered in many different formats. For example, the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism lets students deliver a capstone project in any media format: a broadcast piece to be aired on television, an article to be printed, or an interactive multimedia project to be posted on a website. Collections of capstone projects are posted on the school's website and categorized by topic: arts and culture, business and economics, health and medicine, international reporting and urban affairs.
Capstone projects for information technology students can both solve problems and encourage teamwork. For example, candidates for a bachelor of science degree in informatics at the Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing work with classmates on a capstone project that solves a problem for an individual or organization and represents the knowledge students have acquired in attaining their degree. Examples of capstone projects created by former students are an interactive website for ordering parts for a custom computer, a campaign website for a former member of Congress, a resume-building website and an interactive game.