Extended Abstract: Leveraging AI to Bridge the Gap Between Aspiring Engineers and Effective Communicators

This extended abstract proposes using the capabilities of open-source large language models (LLMs) to assess rhetorical moves in the executive summaries delivered by students enrolled in a Mechanical Engineering Capstone Senior Design course at a North American public STEM university. Our brief discussion surrounds the national and institutional contextualization of a capstone course, the current state of affairs and drawbacks of the executive summary assessment method, using an LLM to overcome these drawbacks, its potential benefits, and future work.