Open-ended design and performance evaluation of a biometric speaker identification system

It is very important that biometrics education, particularly at the undergraduate level, keeps pace with the rapidly growing global market. This paper describes a senior level project in speech biometrics that fits in a variety of courses in order to reach out to many students. The project has broad learning outcomes, namely, enhanced application of math skills, software implementation skills, interest in biometrics, ability to carry out open-ended design and communication skills. Assessment results based on the analysis of the success of the students (refereed publications and enrolling in graduate programs), student surveys related to the learning outcomes and a target versus control group survey show that the project was successful.