ABSTRACT
Changes and globalization of software (SW) development urgently require new ways of teaching and training students in practical and global SW engineering (SE). In this paper we present the innovative methods and experiences from several years of teaching practical and global SW engineering at the Computer Science Departments of San Francisco State University (SFSU), USA in conjunction with the University of Applied Sciences, Fulda University, Germany. We also provide analysis and evaluation of class effectiveness based on several assessment methods including extensive student questionnaires, with our recommendations for teaching such SE classes. Our approach was to combine and synchronize class teaching about SW engineering methods and processes with actual SW development work in a setting designed to simulate a small SW company. Students were divided in "local" groups of 4-6 members, each group forming small SW "companies" in charge of developing a complete working WWW application as a final class project. Several smaller groups of students at SFSU were paired with groups of students at Fulda University, whom they never met face to face, to form "global" groups, thus simulating global SW engineering in a realistic setting. Students developed their final project incorporating five well-defined milestones typical for full SW development lifecycle. Instructors spent considerable time supervising and interacting with student "companies" in the role of company customers, CTO and VPs of engineering, marketing and sales. All student groups (including global ones) were able to produce impressive final project applications and provided very positive feedback for this class.
- Software Engineering 2004: Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Software Engineering, The Joint task Force on Computing Curricula, IEEE Computer Society, Association of Computing Machinery, August 2004Google Scholar
- Charette, R. N. Why Software Fail, IEEE Spectrum, September 2005, 42 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Somerville, I. Software Engineering, 6th Ed., Addison Wesley, 2000 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Torres, R. J. Practitioner's Handbook for User Interface Design and Development, Prentice HallPTR, 2002 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Krishna, S.Sahay, S., Walsham, G. Managing Cross-Cultural Issues in Global Software Outsourcing, Comm of ACM, 47, 4 (April 2004) Google ScholarDigital Library
- Gopal, A., Mukhopadhay, T., Krishnan, M. The Role of Software Process and Communications in Offshore Software development, Comm. of ACM, 45, 4, (April 2002) Google ScholarDigital Library
- Carmel, E. Global Software Teams, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1999Google Scholar
- http://segal.cs.uvic.ca/csc576b/Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Teaching practical software engineering and global software engineering: evaluation and comparison
Recommendations
Teaching practical software engineering and global software engineering: evaluation and comparison
Changes and globalization of software (SW) development urgently require new ways of teaching and training students in practical and global SW engineering (SE). In this paper we present the innovative methods and experiences from several years of ...
Lean software startup practices and software engineering education
ICSE '22: Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion ProceedingsIn the modern economy, software drives innovation and economic growth. Studies show how software increasingly influences all industry sectors. Over the past 5 decades, software engineering has also changed significantly to advance the development of ...
Software Hut: A Computer Program Engineering Project in the Form of a Game
The Software Hut (a small software house) is a course project designed for a graduate-level course in computer program engineering. This paper describes the Software Hut project and discusses the authors' experience using it in graduate courses at the ...
Comments