Computer Science - final year project being too focused on the engineering Recently, I had 3 proposals for my final year project rejected as they were too focused on the engineering aspect of my course and less on terms of being academic?

What could possibly they (the final year project supervisors) mean? Do they mean by academic that I have to do a more research related work? And if it is so, how in the world am I supposed to come up with such a project(as that could be absolutely anything)?

I am so lost about this...
I have heard this kind of comment before as well, and then it meant that the proposed work was too much about (solving) implementation aspects, too little about novel 'research' or 'scientific' work.

It helps to ask the question: 'could this work potentially be published in a scientific venue (workshop, conference, journal, etc)?
If the answer is 'no', then it might be considered to be too much about engineering.

For the record: it is not my opinion that 'engineering' work is less valuable or educational than 'scientific' work. Or that there is even a clear distinction. I just want to shed some light on what people mean when they say these kind of things.