Education trends and their impact on management of software engineering education

Abstract

This is an exciting and challenging period for managers of software engineering education, whether in university, industry, or government settings. Many of our traditional assumptions about education are being questioned. We are seeing changes in delivery mechanisms, financial trends, and education issues. We are seeing a variety of delivery methods as replacements for traditional stand-up delivery, including distance learning via broadcast or video, use of multimedia facilities, self-study at individual workstations. We are seeing a demand for “just-in-time” learning, and perhaps less emphasis on education for the long term. There is a desire to make education dollars go further than they do today. University curricula now include more software courses. This results in a different course mix for universities and perhaps different computing facilities. Industry and government receive these better-educated practitioners, and hence no longer need to offer basic software courses to them. At the same time, industry and government need to keep existing employees current, in an attempt to close this generation gap. These trends suggest impacts on management of education and changes in education in the future. As many of these changes involve advanced technology and computing, it is natural that software engineering education will be one of the areas to feel the impacts early. In this paper we focus primarily on industry education and its management. However, the subject is also of interest to government educators and managers, as well as university educators and administrators, as shifts in industry education will probably affect them as well.

This work is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense